but you can never go back there again

i can't go back and see you, no, until i've fulfilled the mark of condition. i cannot go back and find you until i have found myself a job.

i have to get my ducks in a row. i have to get my things in order. i have to get my frozen rice a-sifted into the tin.

i have to rise myself to the top. i have to get the cream to the crop. i have to sing and i have to dance the song and dance of working.

(...that's all it is?)

and in all this struggle, all this treading, all this bleeding under the water, i don't want to hear you say that it's alright, that we never mind it, that it's all so silly and simple as that i'm just not talking to you, right now.

i haven't figured it out. i haven't. i really think that i won't.

i can't deal and abide with your confidence; i can't be the shine of a star.

but let's pretend, for a moment, i look through your eyes. your staring, boring, glaring pale blue white people eyes.

i like your eyes. i like your face. i guess i've grown accustommed to it. i don't know what to do when it's looking at me, but hey, here's looking at you.

you see a kid, still limping along, never quite born up to be understood. you see what you think is a valiant effort, an unrecognized and unrepetant skill.

and you think this is your recognition. you think this is acknowledging my petty yield of corn.

well, it's funny when you see it that way. it's funny if i'm only just waving in the field.

(and in the field, the worst we can go is down. there's no fear, no sunder, of slipping under. at least we have somewhere to stand.)

so maybe, instead, i'll wave to you. i can't go back; no one can do that.

no one can repart the seas of record. no one can unquit their own last-banned job.

no one can make me be what you want to see, and that's alright: that's what aversion is for.