Tell It Plain

Please excuse my lack of pretense

But I’ve come to realize

We’re all just a bad day away

From the rest of our lives

So please don’t take too much offense

If I insult your paradigm

If it don’t make my wife and kids smile

Then it ain’t worth our time

The only perfect part of me, is her

And she should know it every day

Gonna teach our kids

That dreaming’s always with the pain

Gonna love the ones who love us back

Gonna leave the rest behind

Gonna cut the shit with metaphor

And put our truth on plain white-lined

And when the thousand voices tell us

What we want, it can’t be done

Just grin, begin, and buckle in just like my Nana’s poem

And when in doubt, love hard and tell it plain

My daughter’s always telling me

To put my phone down at the table

Hell, she’s just eight years old

And I’ll be 40 in April

Her fiery eyes remind me of mine And what I sometimes forget

That you can’t let the grind

Distract you from the rest

The only perfect part of me, is her

And she should know it every day

Gonna teach our kids

That dreaming’s always with the pain

Gonna love the ones who love us back

Gonna leave the rest behind

Gonna cut the shit with metaphor

And put our truth on plain white-lined

And when the thousand voices tell us

What we want, it can’t be done

Just grin, begin, and buckle in just like my Nana’s poem

And when in doubt, love hard and tell it plain