When We Were Writers

(album: Look Long - 2020)

Look a gift horse in the mouth go get a job
Last best deal I ever got was a quarter for a beer on the quad
Nevilles singing on a makeshift stage you sittin on a towel in the shade
Came from a foreign town and you smoked a joint with Jackson Browne

What if my pain won't deliver me
What if my stasis crushes me with boredom
If I read into everything you say to me
I will never get the meaning of your words like when you wrote them

When we were writers when we were fighters
Before we found purpose and made deals with God
Let's pull an all nighter push wood in the fire
It might just look like smoke in my eyes but I'm still burning inside

Some sailed the calmer seas serial monogamy
Best trip I ever took was on the ship that I wrecked and how I got set free
Strange boy in the Vegas summer
Dancing to the beat of a different drummer
Maybe a heat mirage or a message in camouflage

What if I thought that the best of me
Spending my time doing just fine
To short change my true full capacity
And recognize it just as I was running out of time

When we were writers we were igniters
Blisters to callus to scars from the war
The sentence gets tighter the impact grows wider
When nothing is wasted nor chances denied
I've had my day in the sun that's no lie
But I'm still burning inside

The slings and arrows the passage narrows
The story harrowing the word becomes flesh
Wrestle the beast that leaves you diminished
It's alright you will never be finished

When you're a writer when you're a fighter
Easy to be cruel better to be kind
Plow through the stalks of your heart's tinder box
Flint to the rock and you'll find you're still burning inside
...