"And despite my late start test wings to fly"

Wings

Would that cigarettes were everlasting
Nor burn up so expensively so fast
Would that they would not kill me as they do
Would weight fly away today through fasting
Defining my true self beneath false skin
And would that you loved me as I love you
Both God and you forgiving me my sin
My sacrifice acceptable at last

If wishes were horses beggars would ride
This beggar would like to ride a big horse
So I could ride read-and-respected now
Though beggars cannot be choosers of course
But if you see me riding up astride
Some noble steed then mine came true somehow
As noble deeds and begging needs allow
Or I could simply ride away and hide

I never had an adolescence then
Pruned by puritan prunes for Vietnam
And marrying beyond my means back when
I should have been king (or queen) of the prom
An adolescent now at fifty-two
My adolescent friends say just be free
And live and love and laugh now while we see
If the wishes of beggars can come true

Just barely beginning to live now I
Commit to this life to the death (daresay)
And despite my late start test wings to fly
More hurried than worried up and away
To have my say by turning night to day
And celebrate the seasons of the moon
Which though it has waned will wax again soon
When finally I get my chance to play

So never mind Uncle Jack what you did
And how we "lived" and how my people died
You came and I went to my room and hid
Fox talking henhouse hens squawking about
Farewell old man those tears have all been cried
I bet it all to try and put things right
Found out what that fox was talking about
The hens squawked all day but then said good night

I will fly high as a kite till I drop
And then will drop extraordinarily
Or just might fly so high I never stop
Till I become who I was born to be
My issues my tissues my rhyme my time
Those loved and lost had such high hopes for me
Then left me here alone without a dime
But left this ticket to eternity

Would that cigarettes were everlasting
Nor burn up so expensively so fast
Would that they would not kill me as they do
Would weight fly away today through fasting
Defining my true self beneath false skin
And would that you loved me as I love you
Both God and you forgiving me my sin
My sacrifice acceptable at last

+Steven Curtis Lance



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