Not Yet

In high school, they told me you gotta go to college

Because those blue-collar jobs don't exist anymore

In college, I learned that a four-year degree

Is about as useful as a high school diploma was before

Some of my friends got jobs in coffee shops

Some fell to making music or writing poems

Some took out loans and went back to school

Some of them just went home

Me, I was afraid of getting stuck

Everybody said don't get anybody pregnant

And don't get a job in front of a computer screen

Not yet

Not yet

Not yet

You've got your whole life ahead of you

Enjoy it while you still can

That's what everybody told me, as if youth were the last

Gasp inside a plastic bag

So I clung to my freedom greedily

I cut up all the credit cards they sent me

I kept my distance from long-term leases

I wanted a dog, but I never got one

I left my options open for so long

So long, they started drying out

When someone suggested I stick around

I'm not ready

Not yet

Not yet

Not yet

I was proud of having nothing but a bed in the back of my truck

And a coleman stove

And a sleeping bag almost nothing that I couldn't give up

I could do almost anything I

Wanted, I could drive down to mexico mañana

But I found myself wishing I had a little more that I could hold onto

I wanted something that I can't let

Go, or replace at the next sinclair

There's a girl I miss

With silver streaks

In her hair

Making me wish

I was there

I pull off the interstate, and drive to her house

Park at the curb and try to get a grip

I curl my knuckles and I hitch up my heart

And knock on her front door

It's me, I say, smiling blindly

Feeling familiar and out of sorts

I recognize the smell of her cigarettes

And some of the same plants on her front porch

I jiggle the doorknob and say, let me in

I hear muffled voices and shuffled steps

Then she says, no, don't come in

I'm not ready, not yet