Dear God, I don't want to go back

I don’t want to go back to the way things where

When I couldn’t even see a single star

I don’t want to be lulled back to sleep and jump back on the hamster wheel

of consumption and work that mask the pain and hurt that I feel

I don’t want to go back to hectic mornings and dragging my kids out of bed

Yelling and fussing while pulling a shirt over my head

I don’t want to go back to breakfast on the run with no time to chew

As we rush out the door putting on the other shoe

I don’t want to go back to making sure they finished busy work that doesn’t teach them how to think

While watching their creativity, innovation, and joy slowly, slowly sink

Into a pit of despair as they conform into the little boxes and fit into the world

I want them to be themselves and free my little boy and little girl

I don’t want to go back to spending 10 minutes of my day engaged with the people I love

And spending the rest of my time locked in some small little windowless cove

I don’t want to go back to long school drop offline

Sitting and waiting in traffic for an indefinite amount of time

I don’t want to go back putting in hours in order to produce

A product a something that in a few weeks won’t have much use

I don’t want to go back and try to fit in all of the things I carry into some nice little neat box

In order to be acceptable, presentable when I’m on the clock

I don’t want to go back to exhaustion and unrest

Feeling like every moment I’m being tested

To see if I fit if I belong

If I will stay lulled and keep chugging along

I don’t want to go back to normal or the illusion that things are certain

Dorothy showed us when she pulled back the curtain

And showed us the wiz

A man pulling strings trapped in a different kinda biz

I don’t want to go back but not sure if I even got a chance to leave

With work pulling and yanking at my sleeves

Reminding me I’m not essential but I still have a job to do

Cause remember I’m expendable and they’ll easily find someone to replace me too

I don’t want to go back to living on fast food cause that’s all I have time to eat

Or to trying to put something fashionable upon my feet

To strut from place to place simply to look the part

When the truth is inside I’m falling apart

Coming undone or rather learning to be free

Of all of the labels and boxes placed upon me

Some I grabbed others given when came onto this earths

Others inherited as I walked around in different kinds of turfs

So even as I sit alone in silence the labels propel me to do and be

Something someone who isn’t really me

Dear God don’t make me go back to the way it’s been

I’m dying inside and it has nothing to do with personal sin

It’s this thing we call living when we’re really just not dying

While we move through the world like ghost and our soul keeps on crying

Now we see through the veil stripped away from the perception of what it means to be free

A world that doesn’t allow you ever just be

That normal way of living meant we had to conform to the masses

And figure out ways we could live by putting us all in different classes

Yes in school by grade and age but also in every single way we could

So that we’d never understand or grasp the idea of a common good

Because what’s good for me and mine is only seen through the walls we’ve built to protect and shield

Too bad it’s the same walls really designed to separate and not build

I don’t want to go back on the hamster wheel working to live and living to work

Consumed with grief and acting like a jerk

Resting by consuming and praising God to get enough strength just to do it all again

What kind of hell did we trap our minds and souls as we move along pretending

That this is normal and the way it’s always been and that won’t change

As we silence and dismiss the wisdom and insight from the mystic and the sage

I don’t want to go back to air I can’t breathe and kids so programed they have no time to dream

I don’t want to go back no matter how wonderful that shit might’ve seemed

It wasn’t good, it wasn’t great but we were told there was no other way

But don’t we have a chance on this long, long Ground’s hog day

To stop and readjust

And reevaluate the things a lifestyle we declared as a must

I don’t want to go back, it wasn’t normal to begin

We were just biding our time till we made it to our end

We’ve been living in caves like the family in the Croods

Afraid of it all falling apart until the met the non-conforming dude

And they realized there was a life to be lived outside of that cave

But it would require them to risk everything they believed the creator had gave

And live in a way that allowed them to discover and to be

It was in risking and laughter that they finally got free

We all thought something big would happen in this what feels like an apocalyptic type of year

But maybe it’s just asking us to begin to examine what we fear

To take a deeper look at what lives beneath the surface that caused us to be lulled in this type of sleep

As we follow along to a script that’s been implanted in our minds so very, very deep

That causing us to move in this robotic type of way

Simply trying to make it through the day

As we step over the body laying limp against the wall

Saying oh well I didn’t cause them to fall

Telling folks to pull themselves up worker harder do more

In order to posses the greatness this country has in store

Speaking the lies that we all start at the same place

In this fabricated reality of the American Dream, that’s more like the amazing race

They start off as with an illusion that they are the same

But they are interacting with the world in the body in which the came

Gaining favors and using privileges along the way

Until one day they make it only proudly say

That it was my hard work and perseverance that allowed me to accomplish all that I have done

And we smile and nod and live by the words they just sung

Oh dear God I don’t want to go back to that world out there

That doesn’t really seem to care

A world where we pretend as though we’re all created in the image of God

But only we they look or act like Becky, Karen, Bob or Todd

Don’t make me go back, do I even have a choice

Will I fall back in line and again loose my voice

Myself and my soul as I move with the herd

Letting dreams wither and die as smog silences the sweet song of the birds

We finally got to hear

When we stopped and begin to face our fear

Dear God I don’t want to go back and I really don’t know what to do

To push against the grain and live in a way that seems inauthentic to You

To live with meaning and purpose and not driven by power and prestige

Is it possible does anybody even know what I mean

I don’t want to go back where the 1% have their way

And we all just bid our time to die another day

I don’t want to go back that shit was insane

We just gave called it by a very different name

I don’t want to go back so I’m trying to resist

Hoping my soul won’t be dragged back to war I refused to enlist

One devoid of living

A world centered on taking and making

Creating an illusion we’ve come to hold as true

As we hold tight to the reality constructed and told to both me and you

I don’t want to go back I can’t keep living this way

And now we have a choice we actually have a fucking say

Will we resist the enlistment or will move with the herd

And finally do more than acknowledge the way we live is just plan absurd

We don’t need as much as we have that’s why some don’t have anything at all

We don’t need to prop up ourselves and pretend we’re six feet tall

We can be uncouth unraveled and come all the way undone

We can laugh a little and give space for more fun

We can work and look people face to face, directly in the eye

We can take ourselves off autopilot and actually learn how to fly

We can be human again and become one with the earth

We can give up on trying to control and own a little turf

I don’t know what will happen when the orders are released I don’t know what I’ll really do

Will we pick up where we left off or begin to create anew

I just know I don’t want to go back and can’t go back what about you

*Images not taken during the beach closure