One of those days again.

When you tried the best as you might to move forward but there’s always something pulling you back to the depths of the blackness you want to get away from.

You hermit away from the world. Until you feel ready to face it again with a bright new plan and take charge of your world again, fresh-faced and full of promises.

Promises are lies you keep feeding yourself sometimes. To keep moving. To keep wanting. To keep hungering.

I have, for many moons now, put away the bitterness and heartaches and reconciled with the fact that some things are not meant to be had too soon. Maybe. JUST MAYBE, the timing is not ripe. Yet.

I am sure more mature now. I’m not in a rush to get there. But it’s been a long time coming. Challenges are pounding at my face daily. Am I brave for just facing them as I do? I don’t expect to get a pat on the back for doing all this while working on getting to where I want to be, but why must it be so super hard not to have shit thrown at me when the positivity I’ve been surrounding myself with is paring down.

I know the whole deal. I’m going to have another breakdown soon.

I’m at the edge. I want to leap forward.

The leap forward will end in death….. or life.

***

**This is dedicated to everyone who’s doing their darnest to leap forward.

It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know, they just don’t care
I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far
‘Cuz a man with a tow-truck repossessed my car

CHORUS:
Don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head, ah huh-huh-huh

[2nd and 5th: ah huh-huh-huh]

[4th: Say what?]

It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Standing on the front stoop, hangin’ out the window
Watching all the cars go by, roaring as the breezes blow
Crazy lady livin’ in a bag
Eating out of garbage pails, used to be a fag-hag
Said she danced the tango, skipped the light fandango
The Zircon Princess seemed to lost her senses
Down at the peepshow, watching all the creeps
So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got social security
She had to get a pimp, she couldn’t make it on her own

[CHORUS]

My brother’s doing bad on my mother’s TV
She says: “You watch it too much, it’s just not healthy!”
“All My Children” in the daytime, “Dallas” at night
Can’t even see the game or the Sugar Ray fight
The bill collectors they ring my phone
And scare my wife when I’m not home
Got a bum education, double-digit inflation
I can’t take the train to the job, there’s a strike at the station
Neon King Kong standin’ on my back
Can’t stop to turn around, broke my sacrophiliac
A mid-ranged migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think I’m going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane

[CHORUS]

My son said: “Daddy I don’t wonna go to school
‘Cuz the teacher’s a jerk!”, he must think I’m a fool
And all the kids smoke reefer, I think it’d be cheaper
If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper
I’ll dance to the beat, shuffle my feet
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps
‘Cuz it’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny
You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey
They pushed that girl in front of the train
Took her to the doctor, sewed her arm on again
Stabbed that man right in his heart
Gave him a transplant for a brand new start
I can’t walk through the park, ‘cuz it’s crazy after dark
Keep my hand on my gun, ‘cuz they got me on the run
I feel like a outlaw, broke my last glass jar
Hear them say: “You want some more livin’ on a seesaw?”

[CHORUS]

A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but he’s frowning too
Because only God knows what you’ll go through
You’ll grow in the ghetto, living second rate
And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate
The places you’re playin’, where you stay
Looks like one great big alley way
You’ll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh,
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers even panhandlers
You say: “I’m cool, I’m no fool!”
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you’re unemployed, all non-void
Walking ’round like you’re Pretty Boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you’ve done did
Got sent up for a eight year bid
Now your manhood is took and you’re a may tag
Spend the next two years as a undercover fag
Being used and abused to serve like hell
Till one day you was found hung dead in a cell
It was plain to see that your life was lost
You was cold and your body swung back and forth
But now your eyes sing the sad, sad song
Of how you lived so fast and died so young

So, don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under
It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five– The Message