The game on the trading floor β talk is the currency Every smirk's a bid, every whisper's a purchase, see Reputation's the stock, and it fluctuates with a cough A casual "Bless their heart" is the knife that takes it off They deal in intel, they wheel and feel important for a fee The fee is just attention, the pension from a guarantee That the next name that gets mentioned ain't the one that's in the chair So they pick a safe contender, a lender for the shared despair See the comfort in the cluster when the target's not among 'em The hum becomes a hymn when they trim and strum the gong on someone I sip the air so thick, a slick witness to the lickin' of the bones The room is full of kindness, but the kindless undertone... Word gets legs, runs in packs, facts get dragged off the tracks One text, two texts, three, now the story's unpacked with the axe Laughter's the pressure, the pleasure in the measure of the cracks It's a sport with no referee, the referee is the mob that attacks And you laugh 'cause it's safer than being the name on the plaque You smile at the style of the pile-on, you file it and pack it away Till the day you need credit, you debit the debt you can pay With a story that's gory and glorious, storing up points for the play We dress our judgment in garments firm with concern The earnest eyes that burnish lies while the lesson's left unlearned Moral mannequins, we spin the sin onto a screen Act clean by pointing at the mean fiends, the routine keeps the scene green I stand here, a grand seer, I can smear the game with a glance I can name the whole dance, the trance, the finance of the circumstance But I stay in the stance, I enhance the romance of the circumstance Benchwarmer fears the bench, the chance to be left in the lurch So I perch on the perch with the pack, and I search for the first one to smother I hate the theatre but I cater to the claque to be part of the chatter. I despise the device, I'm precise in the price that I pay to be nice I roll the advice in the vice, sacrifice any slice of the truth in a trice To entice the same snakes that I'm slicing, it's icier than any device I'm complicit, depicted, addicted, the verdict is I am the crisis, the critic, I'm mock 'em, then knock 'em to lock in the spot that I'm in I'm a part of the sin, the start and the end, the violin and the din It's a spin I can't win, 'cause the minute I'm out, I'm the grin on the chin So I grin and I'm in, I begin to begin it again, it's a sin I'm chagrinned I'm within The spit of the wit is the hit that acquits the one who admits to the split The bit of the script is the trip that equips the lip for the whip and the rip The grit of the pit is the fit that commits the clique to the myth The lit of the spit is the kit that admits: I'm it. I admit it. I'm quit. Check the ledger of my laughter, the chapter of the after, the graft I was part of the craft, I was sharp in the art of the shaft and the laugh I drafted the epitaphs, I clapped at the gaffes, I was staff in the zoo I laughed till the laugh was on me, now I see the view from the shoe The whole rhyme, the hole I'm in, the poll I win by joining the pack The coin I spend is the friend I pretend to defend when the pack calls 'em back You claim you're not the flame but you fan the same flame for the same acclaim The game's the same, the name's the blameβI came, I saw, I became the shame No saint, no aim to be, just the receipt for the seat I took in the heat The street where the sentence is bittersweet, and I'm complete, I'm obsolete, I'm defeated.
