Contempt (1999)
ANTHEM
We are born of stoneAnd etched by wind
Cast aside to live or die
We are the pawns in our own game
Like refugees
Of silent wars
We step on ever-shifting ground
Promoting what we undermine
For countless days
We walked alone
Directionless and vulnerable
Sitting targets wearing smiles
No one of us will go unscathed
By private battles we have braved
A vicious circle we have built
Constructed from our shame and guilt
The flags we wave
Are set afire
To warm the bones of infant dreams
Even as our present is set ablaze
The tinderbox
We sit upon
Decays in churning mists of fog
And crumbles down into the sea
No one of us will go unscathed
By private battles we have braved
A vicious circle we have built
Constructed from our shame and guilt
We lie embraced
In the arms of dawn
The fading echoes of pointless time
Statuettes of Ignorance
And even as
The clock hand sweeps
We pay no mind to where we are
Surely we're not allowed to die
No one of us will go unscathed
By private battles we have braved
A vicious circle we have built
Constructed from our shame and guilt
SURFACE
FallSeize
I am merely debris
Scattered along the ground
False
Rage
A man in a cage
An explosion without a sound
Drawn
In
By the deafening din
Crumbling into dust
Look
Down
Watching me drown
Choking on my disgust
And when I surface again
I will not breathe the same air as you
And once my enemies are slain
My lungs will drink the liquid sky
Sink
Sleep
Drawing me deep
Pulling me underneath
Push
Strain
For the distant terrain
Struggling just to breath
Freeze
Fold
A story untold
A disaster that could have been
A precursor perhaps
To the cruelest collapse
A sign that I should have seen
And when I surface again
I will not breathe the same air as you
And once my enemies are slain
My lungs will drink the liquid sky
Burst
Through
The smothering blue
Falling into the sky
Rebirth
For whatever its worth
If only just to defy
Crush
Burn
With little concern
Feasting upon my prey
Tear
Rend
Expediting the end
Of everything in my way
And when I surface again
I will not breathe the same air as you
And once my enemies are slain
My lungs will drink the liquid sky
COWARD
CowardWhy are you frightened?
So quiet
I can barely hear your lies
Coward
Was it too hard for you
To simply tell the truth?
You are despised
Coward
Your mask is fading
Your weakness showing
Your fatal flaw
Coward
Do your thoughts haunt you
In silent darkness
Before your fall?
The cracks in you are starting to show
You will break before you bend
Get ready for your all time low
You will get yours in the end
Coward
Why are you crying?
So you feel empty
For what you've done?
Coward
Do your pills help you
To see more clearly
What you've become?
The cracks in you are starting to show
You will break before you bend
Get ready for your all time low
You will get yours in the end
Cry me a river
Cry me a river
Coward
You cannot break me
For through your weakness
I grow strong
Coward
You can never win
Because in the end
You know you're wrong
The cracks in you are starting to show
You will break before you bend
Get ready for your all time low
You will get yours in the end
BI-POLAR
I haven't felt so alive in yearsThe sun is shining down on me
My eyes are welling up with tears
Tears of joy, tears of ecstasy
Emotions I once kept concealed
Now flow freely like a river
Life's great mysteries revealed
Love's great promised delivered
I hate my life I want to die
I was just pretending all this time
A mask I wear so I don't bare
My soul to the cold, harsh world out there
Try to prevail but only fail
Each time on a grander and grander scale
My life is worthless and so am I
I hate my life I want to die
The landscape rises to meet my feet
The sky descends to fill my arms
For once I finally feel complete
For once I know I can't be harmed
All I know is light and love
I feel that I could live forever
While others' troubles seem to grow
I have no problems whatsoever
I hate my life I want to die
I was just pretending all this time
A mask I wear so I don't bare
My soul to the cold, harsh world out there
Try to prevail but only fail
Each time on a grander and grander scale
My life is worthless and so am I
I hate my life I want to die
The epiphany that came to fall
Finally helped me reconcile
What I felt wasn't joy at all
All this time it was just denial
I hate my life I want to die
I was just pretending all this time
A mask I wear so I don't bare
My soul to the cold, harsh world out there
Try to prevail but only fail
Each time on a grander and grander scale
My life is worthless and so am I
I hate my life I want to die
PAGES
I read your mindBut it wasn't a very interesting read
The plot was contrived
And the characters were too consumed by need
Page by page
Enduring each predictable turn
The paper dissolves beneath my fingers
And the syllables burn
The fairy tale you sell is a lie
But I read the truth behind your eyes
These words just don't ring true
And tell me all I need to know about you
Edit and revise
Until your conscience was cleared
I tried to read the words that were true
But the ink had smeared
Distorted prose
Penetrating layer by layer
Scrawled down for all the world to see
As if anyone would care
The fairy tale you sell is a lie
But I read the truth behind your eyes
These words just don't ring true
And tell me all I need to know about you
I read your mind
Suffered through every last detail
I watched you try to make sense of your life
And I watched you fail
BACK TO THE TOP
PURGATORY
So here I standCompletely alone
My skin absorbs the rain
Helpless to control
Pieces within the whole
I can feel it starting again
A sudden descent
I never meant
To manifest itself
Caught unaware
In frozen air
By visions sent in stealth
How far I've fallen
Dancing in the ruins of Purgatory
My time is borrowed
But still I waste away
I've seen your eyes
Search desperate skies
For meaning they can't find
Succumbed to fate's
Unsteady gait
And found it too unkind
Plunge through the depths
Of what you let
Control you for too long
Life's fickle hand
Dealt reprimands
You prayed for all along
How far you've fallen
Dancing in the ruins of Purgatory
Your time is borrowed
But still you waste away
Watch the world pass
Through broken glass
And wonder what went wrong
Monuments fall
On shattered walls
We once thought were so strong
Our false beliefs
Are merely thieves
That steal our precious time
And off they flee
In symmetry
Never punished for their crimes
How far we've fallen
Dancing in the ruins of Purgatory
Our time is borrowed
But still we waste away
SUN
The first dayI felt changed
I felt removed and broken
Over man
Over God
But weak by the same token
Wherewithal
Has dissolved
A soulless apparition
Loss of choice
Lost my voice
Condemned and then conditioned
I turn my eyes up to the sun
And stare ahead as if there's none
Mere cinders where my eyes had been
Forced to forget the things I've seen
My limbs move
Without will
My thoughts without emotion
Ignorant
Of my cause
But with complete devotion
I'm sent forth
To collect
Another bitter harvest
A cruel trial
To find out
Who they can push the farthest
I turn my eyes up to the sun
And stare ahead as if there's none
Mere cinders where my eyes had been
Forced to forget the things I've seen
Mowing down
Rows and rows
Like waves of flesh, blood, and bone
Staring blank
Into space
No sign of life on my face
Empty man
With a gun
What on earth have you done?
On your knees
On your knees
For the land of the free
I turn my eyes up to the sun
And stare ahead as if there's none
Mere cinders where my eyes had been
Forced to forget the things I've seen
SKYQUAKE
The morning broke with eerie silenceThe ground beneath us cracked and dry
Too self-absorbed to even notice
The cracks that formed up in the sky
Twisting
Turning
Freezing
Burning
Tearing
Fusing
Lucid
Confusing
Open reception
Forceful rejection
dreaming and waking
the process is taking too long
Take what we need at our convenience
Another quick means to an end
Too busy thinking of excuses
For a practice we cannot defend
Collapsing under its own weight
The sky burns out
As we kiss oblivion
Upon its toothy mouth
Your well-being does not concern us
Any worries you must keep inside
Do as we're told without a reason
We never bother to ask why
Collapsing under its own weight
The sky burns out
As we kiss oblivion
Upon its toothy mouth
We walk upon the fields of fire
The smoldering bodies of our dead
Our self-absorption is the reason
It's the gun we point to our own heads
Collapsing under its own weight
The sky burns out
As we kiss oblivion
Upon its toothy mouth
NEVER FORGIVE
It never felt so realNever so visceral
But now it's all too clear
And all too typical
You're left with nothing
And it's all your fault
Relations cease
And emotions halt
Did you think the things you said
Wouldn't get back to me?
That I'd fall and disperse
Beneath you misery
I won't waste my time
You can suffer alone
Crying your shrill litany
In endless drones
Rain down
Tears of regret
You haven't seen the worst of it yet
Your name
A foul epithet
Never forgive... never forget
I offered you something
You can never regain
But now all I can offer you
is total disdain
And this is how you pay me back
for all those times
I listened to you
and forgave all your crimes
If lies about me
Are the best you can do
I guess I must've
Overestimated you
Paint cruelty on me
But its all the same
No one believes someone
In your mindframe
Rain down
Tears of regret
You haven't seen the worst of it yet
Your name
A foul epithet
Never forgive... never forget
The light of day
Was never kind to you
But the darkness is worse
When the day is through
Time to reflect
On all your misdeeds
And sob your sorry self
To sleep
Rain down
Tears of regret
You haven't seen the worst of it yet
Your name
A foul epithet
Never forgive... never forget
