Cloud Atlas

I fall into the same traps the traps set
it's hard to deny the power of cheese,
if i do what i please what will be my end,
is my will to fail is my will to give up,
i followed my thinking into the end
i saw the end and i didn't think it was worth it to begin at all,
how will i escape the traps i set when i was too young,
who set these things in motion? was it the idea of man?
the idea of woman-- there is no escape, so they said,
am i in prison or in paradise?
am i trying to escape from the place the hordes would rush to live in?
i can't get caught inside a steaminess,
the fuel of my fire is not water,
to whom can i sell my thoughts: the basic problem of mankind
how do we know who to trust?
where do we begin?
how do we begin? how do we overcome?
they have given us institutions that help us to work out the problems the very essence of life set up:
if we are at all, why are we not more?
We are more than some, less than others,
but the others we are less than, we treat like slaves.
We dirty the floors, we let them die-- to create is a responsibility.
What does it say when we let our creations fall into disrepair?
My city is a city fallen and accursed, my city seethes with bitterness.
My city knows me, they have seen me travel, they have seen me live,
my city remembers me when i was three years old,
when i was six, eleven, fifteen.
When I was 18, 21, 24, 25.
My city knows the struggle but my city wants me to survive.
How can I honor my father, my mother?
my father's mother,
my mother's father,
the world they protected?
the protection the world admired?
I could start anywhere, I could start everywhere,
but start what? it is already begun,
things have been transforming,
some people think time is better spent on the run.
I do not envy the rich child who gives his glib gifts to the empire in exchange
for a so-called sweetness inside a gilded cage.
I have fear, I have power, who do I know? who do I desire?
the wants I want, the wants I need,
we are engines that burn on nothingness,
the secret of gravity,
it is the absence that isn't,
the forbidding blank space,
if you could have anything but it had to be one thing,
if you could have one thing, but it could be anything--
the limits,
the lure,
the tired whirl
of mechanized salutations,
inside the rage of heartless matter-- what price would you pay to understand?
folks who have understood have said it ain't really worth a damn,
yeah I done understand, I saw it all, but I couldn't believe my apparent call.
i was asked a lot of questions but they didn't think to look,
at the the expression on my face and the restraint it all took.
I don't want to be signified, I don't want to follow the signs,
I am very angry about the people who criticize a smooth surface for its efficiency--
do the really want the ire that I wish about and dream upon the dreadful smoky fire,
let astronauts argue in tongues designed by fear,
they can count the sheep as they escape over fences and turn into deer,
the dead ones the dead ones inside a nursery flight
could make my shape a flake of gold, my time a Lazarus rite.
There is a word i mentioned earlier, it was meant to function like a trigger,
to send one particular person a urinary shiver
but the words i say i say repeatedly
I say the same things all the time
when oh when oh when will I be free to work on the design?
I feel a bit overlooked, but then again, i am a bit too taken by fear,
I wish some one would talk to me, could they send someone over here?
Someone who answers honestly, who doesn't need my corpse to dance
the code of secrecy of some one who has been reversed,
by which I mean knows about this hidden fear that things could make a turn,
that awful book the bitter boys love, the exploitative fantasy jeers,
FUCK them, by which I mean release them from their shame,
yes I think I'm the better man, and I release them from the blame,
so long as they qualify all their worlds with their face their mothers reject,
none of us could live up to the standards of neglect.