People Are Getting Better

"It's alright (can't see), it's okay (I'm scared),
ask me about tomorrow (can you get there?), only here today.
And as for next week (what if), as for next year (you're gone?),
give the future my regard (I can't see you), you know I'll be here."

They say people are getting better, people are okay,
but you see everything can be narrowed down to the truth behind it,
you just gotta know where to look, gotta know where to find it.
They say they built a pawn shop right on the spot where the devil fell,
cause even when you're broke, you still got something you can sell.
Hell the guy up on the podium says he sells truth, but you can smell the politics on his breath.
He's been doing too many shots of taxes and death.
There's a guy on my street corner who says he sells freedom.
He'll even give me the needles if I'm broke, if I need 'em,
But you see I know what i'm missing, so I ain't gotta try it,
because freedom ain't freedom if you gotta buy it.
But I have no grand plan for the great escape.
And even though I've got a pretty decent cape in my closet,
when I rip open my shirt there's no 'S' on my chest.
I'm no Superman. No adopted bulletproof saviour of the earth.
I'm just like everyone else I have to be slapped on the ass at birth,
but for what its worth, I'm more like Clark Kent.
A journalist of the humanities that tells it like it is,
and right now I'm telling you we live in a world where Darth Vader reminds us "This is CNN".
But even Darth Vader stuttered when we heard about those kids who turned their school into a shooting range.
And the whole world sat by like a baby in a shitty diaper crying out for change.

"It's alright (can't see), it's okay (I'm scared),
don't ask me about tomorrow (can you get there?), only here today.
And as for next week (what if), as for next year (you're gone?),
give the future my regard (I can't see you), you know I'll be here."

But what about the grade ten dropouts with grade two reading levels that play russian roulette with guns they found on their playground whispering "...don't worry"?
Even if it does happen it will take less than a minute because I guess the word funeral still has the word 'fun' in it?
And in order to reassure ourselves we listen to people because people say people are getting better.
People are okay.
But if you look outside your window, the children aren't playing marbles or jacks.
They're vengefully stepping on cracks to break their mothers backs when they can't have their way.
Sure, people are getting better, people are okay.
And we send our children running towards the future as if the futures gonna be the place to be.
And all we can see is the hope bleed out of their eyes as they look up to see the airlines plummet from the skies.
And they run past a young girl in a small cubbyhole of corroding cement cause she doesn't run anymore.
See shes already dropped out of the race.
And in case you couldn't tell just by looking at the lesions on her face,
she hangs a cardboard sign around her neck that reads, "I have AIDs, please leave me alone".
And the kids pour more quarters into the phone and cry into the flat line of the dial tone when mom and dad say, "No, you can't come home".

"It's alright (can't see), it's okay (I'm scared),
don't ask me about tomorrow (can you get there?), only here today.
And as for next week (what if), as for next year (you're gone?),
give the future my regard (I can't see you), you know I'll be here."

And they say, people are getting better, people are okay.
But I can only say that none of this is okay.
The world is not okay.
And I'm no better than anyone else.
I'm looking for answers stumbling around in the dark curling up like a question mark because I don't know what to do.
But I know you have to care about the world,
because it doesn't care about you.