An Ode To The Nite Ratz Club

The gas inside the combustion engine

Took away all of the mystery and adventure

From the walk to your house in the dark

So that we could stay out all night long

And be king of all the roads

And the woods and the lake

Or anything we chose

Because everything was ours

And we would spraypaint "NRC"

So everyone would know

We would break into the factory

Our childhood autonomy

Had no respect for authority or property

Or your asshole neighbors' complaints

And I still have all the keys

To the forklifts that we never got a chance to drive around

Or tear the building down ourselves

But from the top of the water tower

We spilled our guts on one another

And we compiled them together

And we all shared the same heart

And we hated all construction

But we loved all their machines

And they hated our destruction

And we picked their locks apart

And we thought we were damn clever

Because they never kept us out

And we thought we'd live forever

Until the night when it got way too serious

And you showed me your damaged wrists

And you broke down and we embraced

And nothing at that time meant more to me

And if I had only known that it would be the last time

We'd be on that level with one another

I would have never let you go

And I still walk those paths at night, but now just on my own

I recite to myself every story in hopes that I will never let them go

And I'll hold on to every polaroid from France and Rome

And remember the nights at the Alamo

As if it were my second home

And I know that we had no idea what we were doing

But an artist's first work can be his greatest

Under a different set of lenses

And our ideas of staying close together for all time

I wish I still had that same state of mind