As the Dawn Approaches

My 20 Year old self in an obvious depression. I was attending Avila College in Kansas City, MO, I was the first of 12 males accepted to a previously all girl, Catholic College, living on campus with 7 other guys and 240 or so girls. I was in heaven for a month or so, but the realities of going to college, after two years of no school, holding down an on campus cleaning job to offset expenses, an off campus clerking job running a 10 Key calculator for an Inventory Control company and trying like hell to play my music at the on campus coffee shop. My College Counselor was my drug connection for the most part, he had the best pot on campus and was pretty active in the "culture" on campus (1971). The drugs, the work, the academia, the relationships with some of my male counterparts (Vietnam Vets with Heroin habits) and all the girls of various backgrounds just worn me down and depression set in when I realized I was failing most of the classes I was taking.

As the Dawn Approaches – Douglas W. Fielder

As the dawn approaches, bringing nothing more
Than a new day and a new way, oh Lord I feel so poor
Cause a part of me is missing and I can’t quite seem to find
that this loneliness holds anything, oh God I feel so blind

How long have I been going on just holding this inside
This loneliness that’s killing me no longer can I hide
Behind this mask of happiness, which I seem to wear so well
My happiness is loneliness, my resting place is hell

Time is of the essence when you’re feeling all alone
Seconds seem like centuries, when your mind is fully blown
Escaping here is my desire, but how can I begin
I have no one to turn to, no one to let me in

I wanted you to hear me, hoping you would take my hand
I tried and tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t understand
Just why I came to you this time, instead of going on
The sun is coming up now and finally it’s dawn

I told you that I loved you and then I turned away
Muddled in emotions, with nothing else to say
Because instead of caring, you wondered why you should
I wanted to be sharing, but I don’t think you could

I guess that’s why I’m lonely, lost and quite undone
A new day is approaching, I can feel the morning sun
Because instead of caring, people always ask me why
And when I say, I’m lonely, there’s never a reply

I’m lonely, someone help me, I’m dying, someone care
I’m only just a man, dear God, trying just to share
And now the day has come full and so much have I said
That I have no will to go on, except the tears I shed

The tears that are my bitterness, and pain, and anguish too
The tears that are my only-ness, the tears I cry for you
For you and all humanity, cause I can see your plight
And if you’d look through my eyes you wouldn’t like the sight

Of people that don’t worry
They only have to hurry
To catch up with the rest
So they can pass the test
So they can get behind
A product of their mind
And think a programmed thought
That somewhere they’d been taught
And hope that in the end
They’d never, ever sinned
While all the time they prayed
Their mind it always strayed
To thinking of a clue
Of what they have to do
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Is why I’m filled with sorrow