Obsolete

(There used to be a shape to it) There used to be a shape There used to be a road with edges to it A job, a desk, a name that stayed put A house with a number, thirty years on the clock A door you would own by the time it was locked You could see the whole length of it laid down ahead Every hundred metres a mark, and you hit it Pilgering forward on a line someone drew And the line held the weight, and the weight held you But the road keeps moving the moment you reach it The mark slides away when you put your hand to it And nobody told you the floor was a screen What you learn goes stale in a month, not a life What you build gets replaced by the end of the week There is no safe ground, no, not even for you You thought you were above it You are not, you are not, you are not above it (Obsolete) The machine ran fine, then it did not need you (Obsolete) You sat up at three building something to ship And it shipped, and it sold, and it taught itself quick A degree you will finish the day it is dead A skill that is rust the same hour it is fed And the ones who said money would carry you through Never priced in a world that has no use for you Trust fund or not, the floor falls the same The systems run on, and they forget your name So you ran the maths that you ran before The odds, the plan, the door that you owed And the door is still there, but the room behind is gone What you learn goes stale in a month, not a life What you build gets replaced by the end of the week There is no safe ground, no, not even for you You thought you were above it You are not, you are not, you are not above it (Obsolete) The machine ran fine, then it did not need you (Obsolete) They handed you a crown and a debt with no date Said justify the having, earn it, make it mean weight Pay it back in purpose, in something you do But if the systems need no one, then nothing needs you And a few short years from now there is no seat at the desk No hands on the wheel, no use for the rest So if the bill was payable in purpose, and purpose is through Then what, then what, then what is the debt even for What is it for (Obsolete) What is it for (Obsolete) There used to be a shape (Not even you) There used to be a shape