The Stars Talk to Roger

You have been lied to, Roger

Many, many people have lied to you
And this...

...Is an unfortunate thing

If you look up and to the left
You will see yourself at seven
Being jokingly yet not-all-that-jokingly told
By your mother
That you were her 'little doctor'
And so here you are
Twenty years later

About to be a doctor

We would advise against it

You don't necessarily have to take our word for it
But we are the stars

We do know certain things

More than that, we advise

We give advice

It's not always good advice
Because sometimes it's something like--

'Don't bother quitting smoking because a bus is going to hit you tomorrow.'

--or--

'Go ahead and have that drink.  You're going to need to be slightly inebriated when you find out your wife is cheating on you with the seventeen-year-old who bags your groceries.'

You see, it's not always bad advice
It just doesn't always come with
Good news

We're guessing you want our advice, Roger
Because you're sitting on a hill
Underneath us

You drove for two hours
So you could get a clear view
Without city lights'
Obstruction

Isn't it funny how light can obstruct light?

Darkness makes friends with itself
But light battles light

We think someone wrote a poem like that one night
After making love to a very lovely woman
While gazing up at us the entire time

Unfortunately he never wrote it down
And once the passion had passed
All he could think to say was--

'How shall I compare thee to a--'

Something something

We were never much for poetry
We inspire it, but that doesn't make us fans of it

Anyway, back to you, Roger
And your conundrum

You're in love and you shouldn't be
Are we right?

You have that torn look
That tears in a such way
That either one thing must be done
Or the other

And either result is both dramatic
And irreversible

That's always the hardest kind of torn

You're not the first guy to ever peer over twenty-seven
To get a sneak peek at thirty
Who didn't like what they saw

The important thing to remember
Is that if you realized your life was going wrong
A day before it was about to end
It would still be worth turning it around
To have that last day be better

A day lived truthfully
Is always better
Than a day full of lies

There's your sage wisdom
Here's your advice--

You don't want to be a doctor
So don't be a doctor

You don't want to be dating that idiot
Whose country club pedigree impresses your parents
So break up with her

You don't want to wind up
Sitting on this hill again in twenty years
Wondering why your kids hate you
And why you hate yourself even more

You came here to talk to us
But guess what, you got lucky
We're talking to you instead

And we're telling you
To get back in the car
And go back to your life
And try talking to bodies
That are not celestial

Only keep the people in your life
Who want you to live it
The way you need to

If you look to the right
You will see a sea of faces
These are the faces
Of the people
Who have been
Where you are now

Roger, explorers have sat under us
And astronomers, obviously
And artists and criminals
And lovers and inventors
And friends and children

Some of the loneliest and the richest people in history
Have sat right where you're sitting now
And they all got the same advice
Except some of them took it
And some of them didn't

The advice is--

If you had the power to break it, then you have the power to fix it.

So fix it

Don't live a life looking up at us
Live a life for us to watch
And admire

But most of all, if you decide to become a poet
And from the look in your eyes
It does seem like that's the way things are going
So, if you decide to become a poet

Please

Keep a pen handy

You never know
When we'll inspire you