Going Home Tonight

by: Jerry Torres

I hate to acknowledge the danger I face every day just walking into the mill. If I can push every accident I've seen, every death I've heard about here into a hole so deep that the memory will not surface; if I can remove the humanity of the person involved in the accident … if I can do these things, I'll feel that much safer. I won't find myself staring mortality in the face.

Sometimes we forget that we're walking on pins

And the switch can be thrown on our light

And we're playing with fire

As production grows higher

Going home with a paycheck tonight.

Wrong place or wrong time goes the index or thumb

And soon it’s a bloody sight

And it makes you wanna yell

Cause you're watching your pal

Going home with nine fingers tonight.

The bar slips, the weight falls

The blood drains from his face turning white

And it makes you wanna spew

Cause it could've been you

Going home with a snapped leg tonight.

A precarious position's been taken before

The man's not prepared for this flight

And you ramble and talk

Cause you know he'll never walk

Going home in a wheelchair tonight

A wrong button pushed or a lever that’s pulled

Some minor thing done just not right

Can make you wanna scream

About those shattered dreams

Going home as a mortal tonight.

The man in the box one hundred feet in the air

Crashing to the ground like a kite

And you rant and you rave

Cause his next stop’s the grave

Going home in a coffin tonight.

Coworkers maimed, good people have died

Hidden back in my mind with such might

And it's such a disgrace

That these thoughts I can't face

Going home in denial tonight. 

The victims and wounded soon start to fade

The accident’s now a distant plight

And it's such a regret

That so soon I’ll forget

That even I may not go home tonight.