The Market Value

Verse 1

Forty and broke, feeling hope slowly choking inside me

Shorter in height but the fight in my psyche is lively

Working on nothing while watching the clocks keep revolving

Lost in the market where worth is a product evolving

Jobless and joking to cope with the holes in my story

Scrolling through goals that were sold as the road into glory

Society sizing a man by the cash he is stacking

If stacks are not present the passion is lacking

Dating app data is grading my stats in a second

Six feet expected, my genetics rejected the metric

Swiping through profiles that idolize power and profit

While I’m in an apartment with optimism exhausted

Regret is a guest that is pressing against my perception

Questions of purpose keep bursting and stirring depression

Forty and forming a storm in the core of my chest now

Life is a test but the lesson is blurred in the stress cloud

Chorus

Would you love Sparrs if the stars never sparked in my favor

If I stayed broke with a joke as my only behavior

If the car never started, the card kept declining in silence

Is it affection or fractions of status and finance

Is it devotion or motion toward comfort and currency

If I am nothing but stubborn and stuck in uncertainty

If I am flawed and I fall and I’m small in the chart

Do you want me or the role that I play in your part

Verse 2

Dark little jokes are the cloak that I wear in the cold air

Laughing so madness and sadness don’t swallow my whole share

Height of the irony literally shorter than rivals

But mentally taller than many performing survival

Internet rhetoric echoing endlessly nightly

Everyone yelling improvement suggestions politely

“Grind and you’ll find it” they type from a palace of comfort

While I’m in silence confronting the punchline of hunger

Market of dating is trading in status and numbers

Value determined by digits and visible wonders

Love like a business agreement with benefits pending

Heart in the bargain but charts are the language they’re speaking

Existential tension intensifies late in the evening

Meaning is leaving while reason keeps teasing the ceiling

Forty and floating between resignation and art

Writing these bars just to prove that I still have a heart

Final Chorus (16 syllables per bar)

Would you love Sparrs if the bars never paid for the rent yet

If I was honest and modest and nothing impressive

If the applause never comes and the funds never start

Do you want me or the version of me with a chart

Is it affection when pressure is shaping the bond

If I am wrong but I’m raw and I’m holding it strong

If I am broke and I’m blunt and I don’t play the part

Do you want me or the role that I play in your heart