It's Good To Be Alive

The unknown muffled rantings

I can’t make them out

Don’t want to –

don’t want to hear

Mommy and daddy shouldn’t

talk like that

So I tried to play

in the corner with a truck

Or with my GI Joe

to the racket

playing against my walls

But time moved along…

*

I’m watching cartoons

on Saturday

My day – the day

just for me

But the tv channel changed

I didn’t understand

And I couldn’t change

it back to Bugs Bunny

It was as if I didn’t exist

and I guess I didn’t

But time moved along…

*

And I used to cry

and scream and try

Try to tell

what was going on

inside my mind

But either my words

weren't right

Or maybe I was just wrong

*

And back to my room it would end

To where I’d pretend

maybe I could really feel

That the thing that was wrong - was me

And nothing was real.

I would escape to lands that

I had created pretend

Where there were my friends

And I’d walk alone in the woods

Escape within my thoughts

Whenever wherever I could

Then, then, then and up until now even.

*

Was I alone?

I don’t know – I don’t know

I don’t understand

And where is my way to go

My path to become a man?

My dad was the man that I am

so hard to break that

Now I can see and understand

But that’s not the life that I want

Forgive me but just to survive

it isn't enough for anyone

I need to do more than provide.

*

My love, she waited for me

What did she see?

On that I’m still unclear

unclear running over 30 years

And I ran much the same way

my daddy showed me

But it wasn’t for me.

And after I’d run out and hide

When I came back

She was waiting for me.

*

I know that my rhymes are bad

And this message is

cloudy misunderstood

The fault has always been me

Now I can see – Now I can see

It’s not meant to be

It's not who I am

or where I plan to be going

*

While there is still time

I’m trying to change

to what I am and who I was

Both are exactly the same

*

Now I won't hide

in the woods

not anymore

She understands

she understands

ME

*

Mommy and daddy have died

And we have cried,

buried their lives

Now it’s a time to grow,

time to show

How we survive,

no thrive

I look to her at my side,

my beautiful wife

my beautiful life

And I really see -

It’s good to be alive.

Just as I am.