A side-street district sleeps to the beat of the heated city streets

Where the dirt on the windows can’t even be seen

Where the shades of grey and denizens of the night kick their heels

Of their Vans on the chalk-stained sidewalk cracks

 

Not even there is three parts of the city in the summer steam

Late at night it seems

        like nobody’s on your side to match your stride

Asphalt and glass and the bricks that are passed with the

Graffiti on the skyline in a toxic zone meets the chain-link fence

With the grunge of a dying light scattering motions not noticed

By the eyes of rust

      where the rubber meets the road

Fumes seeping through the grates as things creep through the gutters

Clatter and scratch and clicks cocking the trigger

 

There you are all alone twenty minutes from home

Your courage is dying and you’re slipping inside of yourself

You just need to escape the neon that’s dyeing your skin purple-green

Kick it out of this old school skyline regime with fence walls and courtyard stalls

And you’re praying for that river to come by

        ‘cause you know you’re not far

From the upstairs lights you can see for miles some nights

Right now you’re a citizen and pushing along for a cause known as onward

Breaking the fog of a dream unnoticed and a future well-spent

Not by the dirt in your heels but the gears in your mind

Making sense of the knot and what’s not making sense

 

But you know you’re gonna make it further than your fathers

And mothers when the state lines  disappear beneath your feet

 

Such devotion a notion can’t even try to explain

But you’ve got to try living past the curtains of rain

Take a sign make a move close a door and find another

There’s no other way out of this town but up and out and flying

Free past the sea

                              and you’re out on your own

Making a living on dreams and decisions you’ve home-grown

And it’s morning again with a new day ahead

Go and make it a say and turn it into a said