[VERSE 1] Michael Jensen got pulled over at 6:13, Tail light cracked from a pothole last week. Hands at ten and two out of habit, Calm voice, moving slow, eyes down when he speaks. Officer asks if the truck is his. Asks twice, takes a sniff at the window to be sure. Runs his name long enough For the drink in his cup to go cool. Then he jokes, “Guess you can’t be too careful these days,” Like he’s comforting everybody else For the choices he's made Clocked in forty minutes late. Written up, docked pay. No argument from him. Wouldn't change a thing anyway It's just one of those days. [VERSE 2] Boss says the layoffs are coming. Young guy beside him says, “Well, at least diversity hires are safe.” They all laugh in shades of gray. And a beat late, so does he. Because there's only one more week till rent is due, And men who make scenes stay short-term employees. By noon his knees have started burning again— Old injury, no diagnosis or insurance worth clingin' to, But he still climbs the ladder pointed up at the sky Because somebody has to. And he wants to be somebody, Some day. Besides, other people got it worse. That’s what he tells himself every time the pain climbs high as the ladder and blurs the edges of the world. [PRE-CHORUS] He was raised to believe that dignity is found in silence. That love meant being useful. That suffering trials quietly was just what decent men do. [CHORUS] So he carries it. All of it. The suspicion. The exhaustion. The jokes that land too close to home. He swallows every bitter thing like a medicine he's never known, smiles with split hands and tired eyes, and he calls it “being strong.” No hashtag. No posts. No movement. No language for the weight. Just another silent victim trying not to become a burden. [VERSE 3] Lunch alone in the truck cab. Phone screen glows with strangers saying people like him run the world. He looks down at his duct-taped boots, bank account overdrafted by eighty bucks, and laughs once through his nose. Puts his meal away and starts his truck. Not angry. Just confused. On the drive home, someone cuts him off with a sign, calls him a “typical white guy” Before racing off the line. And he almost says: “You have no idea.” But the light turns green. And the moment passes before he speaks. [VERSE 4] Mom calls crying. Bill’s behind again. He says he’ll handle it somehow. Then his wife texts: “You feel emotionally unavailable.” Maybe. Probably. He doesn’t really know anymore. He just knows nobody ever asked Where all the missing pieces went. Only why there weren’t more left to give. [PRE-CHORUS] And tomorrow he’ll wake before sunrise, lace the same "talking" boots, and return to a world that already decided his story before hearing it. [FINAL CHORUS] Still he carries it. Quietly. The blame for things he never touched. The pressure never to break. The guilt of needing help In a world that calls him privileged. He works. He pays. Endures. Repeats. And somewhere beneath that discipline, Beneath the practiced little grin, A human being disappears so gradually That nobody notices it happening. Not even him. [OUTRO] "It's just one of those days." That’s all he’d say.
