Run

I don't post most of my writing on the Internet. My poems exist nowhere - except perhaps some ancient web archives - and I have lyrics to exactly four songs accompanying my videos on YouTube. If this seems odd, then there's something you don't know about me. I'm protective of the work I am most proud of, to a point near paranoid. Honestly, the reason is that I'm worried my work will get jacked by someone more immediately able to use it.

I fully acknowledge this is a ridiculous concern.

At the same time, I doubt if I'll change this habit. Someone asked me today how many songs I've written and the list came to over 20. I really need to find a decent room somewhere in this city to record in. My apartment walls are too thin, its windows too. I just need somewhere quiet with good acoustics, like a bathroom... is that too much to ask?

Anyhow. I'm going to post some lyrics - with paranoid credit - to a song that I performed tonight at open mic. I'm proud of this song, not in the sense that I think it's amazing, but because of how it came about. I was practicing two songs yesterday that shared a common theme, and between them I stumbled onto a decent riff. The lyrics came almost immediately. A day later, I had what I could almost call a final version. Almost. I know better.

So here it is. Don't rip me off. You know who you are, Vedder.

Run
By Michael Lagace

I came down with a hammer head
tales spin, flipped, for a one-side said
grip ground, spin 'round, slip on red
bitter pill, little kill, pleasure/pain meds
but I didn't run

less talk, more talk, same old talk
substance abused so we think we walk
world spins, word spins, heart throb block
now we jump our outlines in hopscotch chalk
but I didn't run

I came down with a sick in bed
slaves row boats, I jump ship instead
sink in water too deep to wade
can't see the wave from an ocean away
but I had to run