Fallen ☆ null

Privacy has got me by the throat
It’s cut me down to size in quarter notes
I’m have the man I was when this was written
but twice as shy now that I’ve been knocked around
Specifically? I’m talking about my home
Providence plays no role, I make my own
I’m doing a residency in music in a strictly commercial zone
and I can’t even believe that I’m at odds with the city
Do I have to get indicted to get support around here?
I mean I’m not Dunkin Donuts but I’m giving back to society
And you don’t recognize without the label validation spectacles,
the one who stands for something is just the one born with no knees
And don’t expect me to rock it in your name, sitting sidelines in the radio game
So replace me with a supermarket, over there we’ll build a mall
Soon comparison rockers shop at the Century Lounge or the Call
We hit a wall a while ago built on premature reputations
but now we fall between the lines the city fails to read,
confused by lyrical subject matter (other than that promoting weed)
and time signatures designed for something more than moving feet
But I’ve been drinking water working harder than anyone else who’s unemployed
six years of shows and all excuses are null and void
We’ve fallen into: "Hey, it’s Gruvin Bigpants Kids. I seen yous play at uh, at da Lupo’s. Are ya still doin da music thing?"

In this "biz" we’re not "kids" we’re "casualties"
Caught in the crossfire of trying to out-grunt colleagues
Swallowing bands with hollow throats
I’d say we could coexist but being a good sport doesn’t put Ramen on the table
And this musical cannibalism is just a side effect
Whether or not you see the invisible teeth that the media nips at your feet with
believe that neither rain nor sleet nor minimum wage
will keep me from stopping the Poo Lyrical Tyranny
In the spirit of capitalism with the spirit of an audio collision
I sing to you, Phantoms of a Million Bad Decisions, "Have lunch on my GRAVE!"
I hope you choke on my divisions!
Your appetite’s the bridge between soup and superstition,
now six feet of silence asleep under the piano
Finally pacified by the dirt dismal quiet of a second story nation
It’s piling up like crazy and my stage name sits on top of me
Forget the top hat, I went back to Babyhead like John Monopoly!

Always the student with no class, I traded in my lab pass to go to the recession
And now I read social encounters as mathematical expressions:
loneliness divided by huddled mass plus density
equals me switching seats and getting off a block early,
coughing home to 60 degrees and grilled cheese
Complaints carpet my apartment on the 3rd floor,
overlooking slums like a lottery billboard

Stressed out about being stressed out
Dressed up to cash out and get a stomach knot when I can’t cash doubt
I need a moment of solitude
To lose my poor attitude
But I’m only invisible when I feel credible
It’s a silent world that won’t stop speaking to me,
strangers’ stories that freeze my journal entries
60 degrees and a nicotine breeze
bring me home finally to my 2nd floor destiny

And it’s odd to think that work is rest to me and rest is work,
I paid out my investments in sleep deprivation currency
Matching breathing rhythms to those of the broken fridge
I file today under "useless" so it’s water under the bridges
The download slows to null, other’s troubles are flushed when my lids locked at sunrise
My alarm made me realize $1.25 isn’t even half the cost of riding the RIPTA bus

With no fuss the pen drops
(or is it the hand that stops writing bedtime stories?)
days to allegory
In six hours filmed over suns invade our territories to START PUSHING!

SILENCE THEN AGGRESSION
EXHAUSTION TO EXHAUST
ESCAPE IS TEMPORARY
RUNNING CIRCLES IN A TRAFFIC JAM
TO SHUT DOWN.

—————–
Then Silence
Gruvis Malt