Half Mast

4 years old
 I was in a playground digging for bones
 Underneath the wood chips
 Under the stones
 Searching for the dead and gone
 Dinosaurs with their dead end songs
 And then
 When I was 7
 I planted 20 peach pits in the backyard
 One of them grew up to be a tree with 50 arms
 It bore the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted
 And the roots tore through the dirt
 Tore through the pavement
 All these animals
 With their paws in traps
 All the animals
 In this bar make me laugh
 It's the way that our faces sink at half mast
 It's the way that our bodies stink (make noise)
 I already know them by heart
 I've memorized their reflections
 And know the art
 I've felt the rush of a big bet
 And got the scars
 Covering each bit of this chest
 We'll play our parts
 But every performance will end
 So if this is really the start of the finish
 I guess I gotta go ahead and settle for chipping away at the infinite...
 Only felt alive for a minute's time...
 All I ever wanted was to be significant - not losing in my prime
 Sacrificing my body pocket and mind
 For a taste of it
 Spitting in the face of it
 They love it when a man plummets
 I'd pray but I can't stomach that rubbish
 Where do they really want to go when they die?
 In the clouds with the most high?
 Underground or the sky with a clown-like "BIG GUY"?
 In a wooden box
 With a suit and tie
 So the boll weevils can hide
 With some maggots in between toenails
 While arachnids swim inside bone marrow?
 Or would they prefer to go sterile?
 God Dammit
 I'm locked inside this unforgiving planet
 Where people chant of freedom and revolution
 But have never had it
 So I've been on a quest to find a way out of inevitable gravity and death
 And I'm at a turning point
 Wondering if I should quit now
 But it's all in jest
 I feel I'm dick deep
 And the writer's block raping my brain
 Is editing out all the ways I want to say "fuck you" in good taste
 This is an album
 About low living
 Sucking up dust and discovering quickly
 That the truth is unforgiving
 All these animals
 With their paws in traps
 All the animals
 In this bar make me laugh
 It's the way that our faces sink at half mast
 It's the way that our bodies stink
 9 years old
 Saw a man get shot in the road:
 Robbed a bank
 Never made it home
 That's my fucking hero though
 A gambler with no soul
 Took a risk
 Buried in a hole
 When I was 12
 I dreamt Abuelo never went to hell
 I dreamt he never shot and killed himself
 In that Puerto Rican motel
 Where the cane rum sunk into the shelves
 I painted him in heaven
 17
 I made believe my father kept clean
 That addiction wasn't built inside of me
 Or David
 But the tree is still growing
 And it seems
 That the fruit it bore 10 years before just wasn't so sweet
 Julius
 I must say
 I must say
 I never thought you would fade
 Julius
 I must say
 I must say
 I never thought you would
 Julius
 I must say
 I must say
 I never thought you would fade
 Julius
 I must say
 I must say
 I must say
 I must say...
 All these animals
 With their paws in traps
 All the animals
 In this bar make me laugh
 It's the way we're all sinking at half mast
 It's Half Mast