Garp (Terminal Cases)

[Verse 1]
And in my day, I lived a beautiful life
I was a sailor, an inventor, a writer, a wrestler
A mad scientist, I was homeless, I was president
I was an alien, a genie and a bat
A radio DJ, a Russian and a poet
A doctor, a widower, a brother
A penguin, two kinds of robots
I even lived to tell the tale
It was like a movie I had seen
My jaw was wired shut and I wasn't breathing
I was lifted off the gymnasium floor
I wasn’t afraid to fly anymore
It was like a book I read
The expectations placed on an empty nest
And the family who knew moving on was best
I was restless
I was grounded, my nights were endless

[Verse 2]
This house is full of broken hearts
And among them, mine is one
When we started to unknow each other
New York didn't seem as fun
They say that love keeps us together
But strangers can break us apart
No stranger more strange than the strangers we've become
If you’re feeling like a footnote
A hit and rerun
Welcome to the club

[Verse 3]
The air got knocked out of my body
And descended to a higher plain
And I was learning
The flood of youth and agony of fear and longing
Everything seemed out of reach
Before I met you
I was an island, now I am a beach

[Verse 4]
I like thinking about how we met
About the where and most of all why
Because we made an intersection
In a world of parallel lines
I remember it all
Unfiltered and uncorrected
The story credit goes to you
The arch of a life disconnected
I'm just glad I noticed it
It was a pleasure
Rocketing off on a fun-filled adventure

[Verse 5]
You knew her too, man
How can you act so unfazed?
I don't deal well with loss
It doesn't happen to me every day
But I don't fear what I don't know
That's what makes life worth living
I'm not worried about tomorrow
An uncertain future’s the best kind
I can mold it and shape it and make it mine
That’s the writer in all of us
The imitator of human behavior
The taste to make a writing with flavor

[Verse 6]
In a world according to Garp
We're all terminal cases
And in a world without you, Jack
I’m alone and I'm impatient
If I came off cruel, I'm sorry
Sometimes I just get so caught up
In the facts and figurations
Blood and math equations
Humility and dignity and insecurity and stuff
All my life, I've been looking for salvation while watching television
My eyes and ears tuned into static and waves of oscillation
They resembled running water of the countless burned down bridges
And point out one that burned down between you and your old hometown
And the damage is irreparable, we can build a better tomorrow
Pick up stones and pave the path on the fossils of your apostles
See the light at the end of the tunnel

[Outro]
How could we be so foolish, Jack?
To have the world and eat it too
As long as I have a life to live before I die, I think I’ll be fine
Yeah, living's what we'll do
When I put down the book, the author is dead
Into a brighter blue world
We step in