I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. hmmm...
Who are you fooling my dear? You are but trivial, immaterial to the roving world and the churning seas. But go on, delude yourself some more. Self importance and daydreams are but your only crutches that remain. What will you do my poor dear? When your recursive reassurances sound hollow even to yourself... What else will you do?
When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station, runnin' scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Lookin' for the places only they would know
No my dear! Don't you look back. For you will know in a flash that this is not where you want to be. This strange place that holds even your whims prisoner, is this where you want to die? Those days when you shared a kinship with Roark and Galt, those wonderful days are gone. Believe me dear, all that is left is a mirage, a fading sheen. A dying light is all that is left. Oh my dear...
Asking only workman's wages, I come lookin' for a job, but I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on 7th avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there
Apologies my dear. I laugh not at you, but at your endearing naiveté and your hopeful face. Clamber all you want, claw at nature, if you may. But a place for everything and everything in its place. You in yours, they in theirs. Sigh! I told you my dear. Of the obsolescence of effort, and the chimera that is hope. I warned you.
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me
I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, that's not unusual
No it isn't strange, after changes upon changes,
we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same
Run my dear. Run! Melt away those layers of age. Race to the setting sun. Beat the rushing wind. But even rainbows, resplendent as they are, have to vanish and die in time. Some truths don't change my dear. They just take a while to catch up. But run you must. Away from it all. Make like a bird and fly my dear.
And I’m laying out my winter clothes, and wishing I was gone, goin’ home
Where the New York City winters aren’t bleedin’ me, leadin’ me goin' home
You walk with your head in the clouds. You really do my dear. Don't you remember you don't have a home? You squandered it away on a bet. A bet against yourself. You have long been a drifter, don't you see? My little destructive dear...
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving."
But the fighter still remains
Nurse those scars my dear. Nurse them, for they are not going away. Rest tonight and leave tomorrow dear. But then again, who are we fooling really? For you and I have always known. You are but a fighter my dear...
PS: Written while listening to Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" on repeat. Easily their best song!
