Mr. Vice President

Mr. Vice President.
Mr. Vice President.

I walk into the White House. The doors are all closed.
I’m the second in command, or so it’s supposed.
But Jefferson smiles with that frozen veneer.
"Ah, Mr. Burr. So good to have you here.
But the Cabinet meeting is private today.
Why don't you go to the Senate and play?"
I’m a ghost in the mansion. I’m a shadow in the hall.
I helped him to rise, and he waits for my fall.

No power. No voice. No role.
Just a title that eats at my soul.
Mr. Vice President.
The most insignificant office that man ever made.
I’m watching the colors of my victory fade.
Frozen out.
Frozen out.

He fires my friends in New York one by one.
He undoes the work that I had begun.
He treats me like Judas, he treats me like dirt.
And he does it so calmly, with a smile and a shirt
That is frilly and fancy and French and polite.
While he stabs me in the back in the middle of the night.
He knows I’m a threat. He knows I am smart.
So he’s breaking my power apart.

I sit in the Senate chair.
I bang the gavel.
Watching the threads of the union unravel.
I am the judge, but I cannot speak.
I have never felt quite so weak.

No power. No voice. No role.
Just a title that eats at my soul.
Mr. Vice President.
I have to get out.
I have to get out.

Four years.
A long winter.