The Handbook

Keith Landry

When I was a junior in high school, I read the book “Illusions” by Richard Bach. It was “that book” for me and at age sixteen I started realizing what I was capable of becoming.

I read it again twenty-five years later, and as the line in the song here says, “I remembered who I am.”

THE HANDBOOK

We’re all Messiahs
The Handbook said to me
Or we’re all pariahs
If that be who we choose to be

Life is so fleeting
Like a flash in the pan
In the words I find I’m repeating
I remembered who I am

You might think my heart can lead you home
Won’t be long now till I’m gone

Could I be your savior
Leading as the crow flies?
But based on my behavior
Do you really think it wise?

You’d like to believe my heart can lead you home
Won’t be long now, won’t be long now

I’m not saying
That the pages should define you
I don’t do much praying
But these pages might remind you

You might think my heart can lead you home
Won’t be long now till I’m gone

If I spoke my mind
‘Bout the way the world should be
Would you turn in kind
Would you nail me to a tree?