The Boss
I was eleven listening to Born in the USA
Blasting from cheap boom box speakers
Sprawled out on the skin thin carpet
Of my tiny bedroom in Massillon.
Even then I knew it wasn’t an anthem.
I’d read the lyrics, all the songs,
Printed on the fold out
Cassette cover like it was scripture
I was born to run I had a hungry heart
I was going to get out of that two-bit
Dead man’s town and go racing in the streets
Far away from this hand me down precarity
That tempts most into a docile mediocrity
And find a reason to believe.
Driven by nothing but a desperate hope
And an inchoate rage manifesting as tenacity
All I had to do was not give up, not stop
No matter how much disappointment
Dripped down from the dark clouds
Of a two faced modern American life
This was the music that told the truth
About the quiet middle aged acceptance
Of finding yourself alone in the space
Somewhere between everything you
Ever wanted and all you have lost
Or left behind
It’s the price you gotta pay
It's the faces looking through you
It’s the ghosts in the eyes
Haunting my son someday when
Everyone he loves is sent away.
Eleven himself now, he sprawls
Across a much softer carpet
In a much bigger home
Occupying himself unthinkingly
With all the things I erringly thought
Made the least bit of difference.
Soon enough it will be up to him
To stop waiting for that moment
That won't ever come until
He finds his own way to live
With the self-same sadness
And reckon with the rollicking madness
That I’ve loved him into living
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