The Childhood of a Leader

Snake handler, faith healer
Lawyer, doctor, sword swallower
Child psychologist, amateur pornographer

Sales associate
Six percent commission
Do you have our club membership?
Can I tell you about the benefits?

Photo developing, we see every picture
And rob extras of those of the sexual nature
There's a shoebox in the back which is storing the duplications
Right adjacent to a pile of blank applications
And if our patrons weren't so ordinary, I might take up blackmail
I'd seize upon the evil if I thought it would be the key to feeling once again
But what I can gather from these bins is that
People's lives don't provide many pictures worth stealing
Just like mine, although plenty get abandoned
I've stopped seeking sex to find different kinds of passion
Because sometimes amongst the thumbs and out of focus baby shots
A candid picture of anger or happiness shows up

I know I've been swallowed
I can feel the acid eating at my skin
I don't want to live in the stomach
But I don't want to be shit
Out into the streets with parts of me partially digested
Left here in the beast

I know I've been swallowed
I can feel the acid eating at my eyes, at my hands, at my friends, at my mind
And if I don't die
I'm developing quite an appetite
I guess I'll have to eat my way back outside

I've got it down to where it takes me about an hour
To bag the trash and get it out from underneath the counter
Lug it up to the dumpster, back behind the shopping center
Lost in thought, God it's hot, a ghost inside the register
Zombie walking parking lots
Waiting for my moms to pick me up
Holding down the vomit in my throat
I hope no one I know ever sees me in this state
Weeks deep in the belly of the beast named retail

I want to yell "help me!"
The scream of something's very wrong
But everyone will tell me that my battle cry is too banal
And way dated
No, I can't explain it
But I didn't say that they could take
What they're exchanging for my paycheck

I will not be addicted
To cigarettes and scratch-off lotto tickets

I'm not satisfied to lie about my clock-out times
When I close the store
I need something more from this life
In the pictures I horde, I find one in every five hundred
That makes me feel a little less disgusting
The answer must be here, I just haven't found it yet
That's why I keep stealing, so I can not forget
That I was once whole, I was once real
It's just a job, so it's not a big deal, right?

So why am I so acutely aware that I'm being digested?
Why am I scared at night that I might not survive in this climate?
My body's a box, and I'm sealed inside it
Why have we decided that we're stuck behind the stomach lining?
I'll find a way out, or die trying
I'll find a way out, or die trying
I'll find a way out, or die trying
I'll find a way out, I'll find a way, I'll find a way out or die trying