13. AN [bad word] 
i don't remember ever being someone else
but here i am, on this stage singing like i mean it
watching you stare back at me
like you've seen a ghost, which is pretty close
you can see through what i believed in
i was an [bad word]  i was a messenger
but what you are doesn't matter until you've sold it
and i've nothing left for you to buy

i let you watch us whither
in the name of something bigger
i guess that i was given
something greater than my hands could hold

i know that i could fake this and you'd eat it up
but it's not in me to cheat your parents out of their money
see, i'm no more a tortured artist than a self-serving, temperamental addict to the sound of my own praise
and i could write for days and days without finding a word that would bear repeating
but still, i can't put this pen down, like it's going to somehow make you proud or make me more of a man than i am now,
or allow us the words to respond for the years that this song has taken
and i've nothing left for us to say

so this is where i brought us
to float without a purpose
the fire i lit consumed us
the boat, the crew, the tourists
we all paid to be
something greater than my hands could hold