[ti:]
[ar:]
[al:]
[00:12.14]You know what troubles me?
[00:14.25]They say that nobody ever changes
[00:16.69]Despite their impressions otherwise
[00:19.51]And despite my efforts, I'm daunted by the same faults as always.
[00:24.93]While I'm tired of their jabs, they seem ever renewed by some hidden source of sustenance.
[00:35.34]They say that living 25 years is just the amount of time it takes
[00:38.44]To harden in your mold, in flexible
[00:42.32]But I'm past that line already
[00:44.44]I shuffle down the downhill side past broken trees and decomposition
[00:49.64]The bittersweet medley that blends death with hope of the ultimate oblivion
[01:20.72]Thirsty for a time when I would sit down, my work complete
[01:24.38]Surrounded by a field of fallen enemies in defeat
[01:27.65]Orbited by planetary jewels of my own design
[01:31.86]Made happy forever by their luminance
[01:35.73]But to break out of the present was impossible.
[01:38.09]The future doesn't exist yet; the past doesn't exist anymore.
[01:41.41]They've never existed: only this,
[01:44.42]the perpetual present where we're all stuck.
[01:48.32]But it felt like the coming day would just be a replica of one before
[01:52.31]With pain and boredom, and just brief bursts of pleasure
[01:55.99]And so miserable and feeling the futility of my existence,
[02:00.49]I lifted up my voice, and to my future being I sang this lament:
[02:05.95]Swear that I will crawl out the crater
[02:11.07]To smell the land that's left when the smoke clears
[02:16.97]Swear that when I slide down the side
[02:22.04]My troubles won't be close at my heels
[02:28.40]I can't promise you will be free from the ghosts
[02:34.61]Of fear, of pain, of doubting, but
[02:39.25]You will know the faces they show you
[02:45.08]And recognize they're only a vapor
[02:50.93]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[02:56.48]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[03:03.48]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[03:08.25]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[03:14.15]Burned up, beaten down, bleak and weary
[03:21.76]Weakness is a wall that you have got around
[03:27.31]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[03:32.95]You may regret the route, but here you are anyway
[03:39.51]My future self cheered me with these words
[03:41.68]And it was as if, though nothing had changed in my external world,
[03:47.16]I saw my future existence and my present unified in a strange eternal present
[03:53.45]As I continued to slide down the slope of the crater's outer wall,
[03:57.11]I thought, with great clarity, about the misery that had marked my life
[04:02.74]while I was struggling, inch by inch, to the crest of that vast volcanic mouth
[04:09.99]And I saw the singed bark of the stately trees,
[04:12.95]and I looked down and saw the darkened flesh of my own singed arms
[04:17.36]It was then that I realized that I had demonstrated,
[04:21.17]in my own fragile way,
[04:23.32]the strength of the tree