The Relatively Fair

All my friends are in New York and California
Trying for something big, what it is well they won't bore ya
They just want to make a mark that'll stay around when they're gone
All my friends are actors and musicians
Myself included, man, this ain't no inquisition
If there isn't beauty in a world like this then what have we got?
But I don't want to wake up one morning with just a bible and a cot
When I was younger I made my mother worry
She said "Will, you'd better study in a hurry;
You don't want to come to one day in a job that you hate"
When I was younger I passed the time so slowly
I had a hunger, but for what I could only
Guess the root of the cause of my distractions one by one
My dumb teenage heart like the surface of the sun
What if every florid metaphor is running kinda thin?
What if I already know how all of this is gonna end?
What if all I really need is for my head to be up high
Above the trenches and the vapors, the sirens and the sky
I've never known you, and chances are I never will
But if you hear this, know that I love you still
You're the most beautiful girl, you're the bravest man there is
I've never known you, but you know everything that I've known
You know the balance to be struck when you're all alone
There's a need to be happy and there's a need to be safe
And you'd better pick one and hope that the other gets to stay
But what if all you want one day's a husband or a wife
Just a job, just a house, just a child, just a life
Would you give up the poison call of fame to drink up the last air?
Would you forsake the absolute for the relatively fair?