(no subject)

Tonight I sat, alone with my voices.

you were never good enough

I thought about myself, things I thought I knew. I used to know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

you've grown up and this is what you'll be

I wanted to be a true man. A man who relies on no one.

no such thing

I keep saying the same things over and over.

because there's really nothing there

I didn't want you all to find out. I'm a fraud.

can't lie forever

I'm not smart. I'm not 'together' at all.

they're figuring it out already - just look

I am normal. I am an everyman. Some of you have called me brilliant because of what I have written, and I thank you for your kindness, but I'm sorry to have to tell you that I'm nothing of the kind. I can't be. I never could be.

but you were arrogant enough to want to be

I recently acquired a recording of some music I had once created with my old band, Nitris. I remember at the time how excited I was to write and perform this music, how I thought that we were taking our first step into a larger world, where we had the chance to do what we loved for a living.

never had a chance in hell and you knew it

Now, when I go back and listen to the recording for the first time, all I can hear are the mistakes. I was really and truly incompetent. The flaws. The bad choices. The genuine desire, but the pathetic lack of ability.

you always want what you can't have

I am the latter-day Antonio Salieri. I can see what I want, I can even hear it in my mind, but I can never touch it, feel it. I am forever straining against the iron bars of mediocrity to get at freedom, to reach the Jailer's key, to be free of incompetence and inability.

you were never innocent