As children we are consumed with wishful thinking
With the possibility that we could be anything
We could touch the stars in the spaceships we invent
We could end world peace as we stand at our presidential podiums
We could race around midnight tracks to the muted rumble of engines and crowds
But nobody tells us about the rows of eternal desks
Wooden prisons that keep captive many men
They don’t tell us the real monsters
Aren’t fangs and claws under your bed
They are politicians in cashmere suits who spit propaganda
They tell you that strangers are your biggest fear
But what about the boy with the soft brown eyes
Who once whispered promises to your neck and
Now leaves you sobbing in your cold empty bed
They never tell you that everything is measured in numbers
You’re born to the fate of a test score
Predisposed in the marrow of your bones
Until you are someday assigned another number
The reason you crawl out of your cotton sheets
And turn the shower on so hot your skin turns crimson
The reason you are consumed with a never ending stress
That gnaws at the back of your eyelids
And drains the summer from your cheeks
You sit restricted by your wooden cell
That holds you back from the dream you kept in your hopeful heart
Of catching stars and ending wars