Smoke | Collapse | Impermanence | How Can You Sleep? | Spark 

Leave This All Behind | Alive | Greed | Angels & Demons 

The Cruelest Year | Grind | Alone Again | Chosen

Smoke 

A smear of grey across the sky
A warning in the distance
An indecipherable alarm

And there we stood, our mouths agape
The deer caught in the headlights
Our minds adrift and far from harm 

CH

Smoke on the horizon
Can the flames be far behind?
We run for cover, but it’s too late
We are engulfed, we are
The smoke on the horizon

Nothing ventured, nothing lost
We paid the price, but at what cost?
We sold our future to the past

Accept a necessary doom
Too easily and way too soon
Ignore the wisdom we amassed

 (CH)

A smudge of ash across the ground
An undelivered message
All that remains is memory 

A gust of wind across the plains
Carries away the remnants
Into forgotten history

(CH)
 

Collapse

I’m on the verge of collapse
I’m on the brink of disaster
And I’m far more lost than I want to admit

I’m at the end of my rope
I’m on the edge of a breakdown
And no matter how tightly I hold on, I still slip

CH

And you’re watching me die
Right in front of your eyes
And if you turned your back on me

I wouldn’t be surprised
There’s no new story to tell
It’s every man for himself
As brick by brick
We construct our own personal hell

I’m running out of time
I’m running out of options
And the desperation is chewing me up inside

I’ve got nowhere to go
I’ve got no one to turn to
Just accelerating, inescapable decline

(CH) 

I’m suffocating with guilt
Asphyxiating on panic
And I can’t shake off this fear with which I’m bound

I’m buried up to my neck
I’m sinking under the water
And the next wave could be the one that brings me down

 (CH)

Impermanence

Just for one night can we pretend that this is normal?
Just for tonight can we pretend that nothing’s wrong?
Can we forget that we are tired and broken?
Tonight can we act like we’re still strong?

Just for one night can we pretend the worst is over?
Just for tonight can we allow ourselves to breathe?
Can we let die, the flames that burn around us?
Tonight can we live without disease?

 CH

If we question our impermanence
We may not live forever
But if the sun comes up tomorrow
Why should we hope for better?

Just for one night can we pretend that we are happy?
Just for tonight can we leave behind our grief?
Can we ignore the storm clouds in the distance?
Tonight can we rely on our belief?

Just for one night can we laugh at our misfortune?
Just for tonight can we sing away the fear?
Can we let go of everything that we’ve lost?
Tonight can we hold the future near?

 (CH)

How Can You Sleep?

A conscience never burdened you
No empathy to slow you down
Others were there for you to use
Like hapless ships you ran aground

CH

How can you sleep?
The world burns at your feet
How can you forsake
The casualties you leave in your wake?

You lied like other people breath
Speaking a twisted lexicon
To get your way by any means
No matter who you tread upon

 (CH)

The saddest part is you believed
The world you fashioned in your mind
While all the people you deceived
Were slowly plotting your demise

 (CH)

 Spark

For how much longer must I bleed
Intro the soil before I see
The one who holds the blade is me?

For how much longer must I stand
On destiny’s uncertain sands
Before I find stability?

CH

One spark among the embers
One voice against surrender
One dream that’s worth defending
One love that’s never-ending

Ignore the underlying cause
Among a thousand last hurrahs
Where every promise is a lie

Externalize the blame for now
The voice of reason disavowed
A slave to all that I decried

(CH)

I wear a stranger’s face
Not so different from my own
All the steps that I retraced
Left me wounded and alone

For how much longer must I burn
Until I’m able to discern
The root of all this suffering?

For how much longer must I flee
These harsh responsibilities
For the sinking rock to which I cling

(CH)

Leave This All Behind

Sunrise
Light revealing
Disorder
Panic-striken

Tension
Spilling over
Screaming
Its refusal

CH
Burn it down and start over
I want to leave this all behind
Abandon all the trepidation
Weighing heavy on my mind

Anxious
Unfamiliar
Landscape
Weeping ruin

Wreckage
Omnipresent
Omens
Stark Reminders

(CH)

Distance
Separation
Leaving
Terra Firma

Darkness
Ringing empty
Lights out
Resurrection

(CH)
 

Alive

Through the iridescent rain
In this heavy atmosphere
Nothing makes a sound
But the bearing of my heart

Broken down and torn to shreds
On the verge of madness
Here comes that old familiar pain
Like a long lost friend’s return

CH
I never felt so
I never felt so
Alive
Alive

Waves of doubt wash over me
A sighing ocean of black
Deep and steady, dark and wide
Underneath indifferent stars

I’ve been waiting for so long
For some kind of answer
But there’s just an empty, distant sound
Calling like a mother’s voice

(CH)

Every moment is contained
An event within itself
A perfect little world
Hidden by a jealous sun

For an eternity or more
It was the hurt that brought me back
Like the glowing fires of home
Beckoning through winter air

(CH)

Greed

A grip on you like an addiction
A selfish need for something more
Who it hurts is inconsequential
When you get what you’re looking for

Avarice, the muse that guides you
You are the sum of what you gain
But it won’t buy your soul redemption
The kind of wealth you can’t obtain

CH

The pigs are at the trough
Their hunger won’t subside
Awash in their own filth
Awash in their own lies

No sense of empathy
Corrupt in word and deed
I hate you for what you represent
I hate for your greed

Think of yourself before all others
To hell with grace and charity
They just impede your blind ambition
They just impede your gluttony

(CH)

Step on the necks of those beneath you
And claw your way up to the top
But don’t look to me to find compassion
When you inevitably drop

 (CH)

Angels & Demons 

The voices whispering inside your head
Confine your thoughts deep inside cells of noise
Confusion carries you into the dark
Where everything it touches, it destroys

Patterns of shape and light disorient
What happens when you can’t trust “trust” itself?
Blinded by the glare of anarchy
Igniting violence that you meant to quell

CH

You speak with the angels and demons
Even though nobody else but you sees them
Their voices grow louder as they ready their attack
Screaming their secrets like poison-tongued Sirens
Bathing you deep in emotional violence
You’re lost in the desert with no one to lead you back

When reality becomes non-sequitur
With every sense you have deceiving you
You don’t deserve this terrifying life
Hold tight the tether you’re connected to

(CH)

The Cruelest Year

The cruelest year
Stole lives too young
And many more still
In the balance hung

We couldn’t breath
Try as we might
Fragile as feedback
Hopeless as the night

CH

But the course has run
The damage done
The slate wiped clean again 

The cruelest year
Tore loves apart
Its greedy fingers
Rending blameless hearts

This empty space
Where once loved dwelled
Razed to foundations
Left an empty shell

 (CH)

The cruelest year
Left us behind
The mangled wreckage
Of our lives entwined

We bore the scares
Mistakes we made
The walking wounded
In a grim parade

 (CH)

 Grind

The ground is pulsing
The pace is constant
So unrelenting as the day goes forward

There’s no escaping
It’s too incessant
The soulless shuffle and the crushing boredom

CH

It’ll grind you down if you allow it to
It’ll chew you up and have its way with you

The noise relentless
A pounding hammer
Against your psyche and it’s growing stronger

The blaring anger
Constant frustration
You can’t endure this clamor for much longer

(CH)

Where is the quiet?
The dulcet silence
That used to punctuate this lack of order

No time to wonder
They can replace you
You’ll be discarded and thrown in the corner

 (CH)

Alone Again

The timid bloom of dissolving light
Disintegrates into the dusk
Quiet rolls in like a drowsy fog
Underneath which I am crushed

CH
Alone, alone again
Alone, alone

Push my way through the bustling crowd
Past a million faceless souls
The buildings moan out a concrete sigh
Onto dirty streets below

 (CH)

The rain comes down like angry bees
And the streetlight flickers on
I thought that I could overcome this all
But now I see I was wrong

(CH)

 Chosen

 We regulate in your best interest
A rescue to which you're compelled
We're here to tell you what to think now
We're here to save you from yourselves

CH

We are the chosen few
We know what's best for you

You'll live in fear because you're told to
You'll fall in line if you are wise
We're only here to help protect you
From the tyranny of compromise

 (CH)

One way for you, for us another
You can't be trusted to behave
Your opinion is not needed
You can't be helped, you can't be saved

(CH)