Character Is Me

I remember sitting on the roof top
 Theorizing 'til my head was sore
 Climbing over fallen tree limbs, checking
 What the Mississippi swept ashore
 A young whippersnapper on a street
 Corner hollering, "We gotta end the war"
 Now I be, this character is me
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 Skinny shorty with a coffee can
 Hunting slimy creatures in the mud and the dirt
 For what it's worth, I'll let 'em go at the request of ma dukes
 Almost caught a snake once, last second I got spooked
 Slithering, shaky, I stay fidgetin'
 Use to pier jump into polluted Lake Michigan
 Now, I'm hanging off a bridge 40 feet higher
 Above the murky water, shit I thought I'd be wiser, nah
 Tiddlywinks and newspaper tug boats
 At 27 I be singing all my love notes
 I've been afraid of rejection since back in the day
 Prolly why I never ask her to stay
 I quit smoking and then I started smoking again
 I gotta find a different way to learn to cope with the bends
 Extend a hand to the foe, bumping folk tunes and wu tang
 Lost my hops but still got a nasty hoop game
 A minimalist preaching to you that less is more
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 A screen porch dweller soaking up the thunderstorms
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 A romantic with my bleeding heart ripped and torn
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 A late nighter feeling hungover every morn
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 A deity, and a downer and a friend of yours
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 Now I be, the character is me
 A bit of all of the things I've been before
 I think that I've learned the simplest things last
 Every situation ain't a riddle or ink splat
 As a teacher I can spot the shittiest mishaps
 And know just what to say to make a miserable kid laugh
 A warrior, a worrier, performing like a
 Mourning bird, chirping to the chords of a Wurlitzer
 Shifting from power to paranoia like Greek Gods
 Waxing on the dreams caught and glory that we've lost
 But I've yet to live my better years
 I still need to see the stars from the southern hemisphere
 Author stories and compile a thick book
 Spend the summer dawns pulling trout off a fish hook
 Look, I get caught up in comparisons
 Got accomplishment amnesia and forget 'bout where I've been
 But the triumphs, melancholy and the barriers I've breached
 Form a fine collage and that character is me
 I am just a drop of rain
 Falling to the quiet stream
 The flowing rivulet that'll
 Wash it all away, wash it all away
 I am just a grain of sand
 Seated by the ocean blue
 On the golden beach that
 Sprawls across the way, sprawls across the way
 I am just a single brick
 In a wall that towers high
 The edifice that you can
 Off it far away, off it far away
 I am just a lonely star
 Burning in a crowded sky
 On the night that stunned the world
 All across the way, all across the way