1. DRAWNING

(Instrumental)


2. FOUNDATION

The commencement of a young boy’s pride
Was a familiar glare in tradition’s eye.
The laws declared within my span are compelling me
To challenge where I stand.
I’ve existed in this house where every page presents a rule
Every tongue interprets light set to stimulate my eyes
This can’t be why they locked the doors
And placed our questions in a void
With this letter
I imply that the author molded fiction into verse.
They’re building arguments but still their answers stand obscure
There’s ambition in my ink but a question is the theme
Will you reply?
I’ve heard legends of the men who left.
They tied a noose around tradition’s neck.
They changed the meaning of their fathers name
And paved a road that disclosed an elusive faith.
Am I absorbing this myth? Should I set foot on this path?
Do I abandon routine when I’ve challenged the facts?
So I sign this page that’s sealed with a thesis,
The views they hold have always been subjective.
My patience lacks the strength to trust my father’s vow
Until my doubt has been released
I’ll put my faith in what I can see.


3. SEEKING

I address this letter and commence my venture.
Just this once I’ll walk alone.
I’ll be the son who left his home.
The lens that fills my scope exposes the dangers of this road
But I still proceed.
I’ve been traveling for days, assessing value in this path
But time has drained my barren pockets,
And now it’s foolish turning back
So I keep this compass at my side, inhale the comfort it provides
But if I only take direction do I become what I defy?
Are we the parable of failure?
We left home in search of something new.
We’re prodigals on a path that stays from truth.
So I altered my direction and I met a vagrant by the road
He informed me of a city and a woman who lives alone.
“She’ll answer questions you’ve composed.”
It stirs within,
This longing must end, I swallow his words and now
I’m changing my course.
It was freedom I explored and
I found the city built beside the shore.
She was standing in it’s streets;
She said she waited there for me and so
I followed her to shelter, that’s where she insisted
That I sleep. So I surrendered to her sheets.
I fell asleep with her beliefs.
Sleep is such a gracious thief.
It steels my time but gives me strength.


4. NUMBERS

So I sleep and embrace this lucid dream.
I hold a book that offers wisdom but my vision feels so weak
Oh sleep is such a gracious thief,
It steals my time but give me strength.
Will this morning render hope and give me back control?
But I wake in a bed that has never seen love.
Just a tryst I’ll embrace while my essence is young.
Now this city owns my name; it marks my residence as shame
As I wander through it’s streets I gamble with defeat.
Is this a crime that I commit when
I’m just stealing to exist?
Now my affliction is sustained and in their prison I’m displayed
We’re convicted thieves.
I reside with the accused.
A realm conceived through battered youth.
I’m subsiding with my fault.
These walls are now my home.
I see a letter on my floor It bares the knowledge that I’ve ignored
A brilliant counter in his reply but can this author amend my crime
So they gathered all the thieves and gave them numbers one to three
The odd forgiven and released; the even chained and shipped to sea
But I stood second in the line before they covered all our eyes
Two officials then explained that two conclusions were at stake
“The number branded on your wrist decides if you exist.”


5. DEPARTURE

I’ve been sentenced to death on this ship that’s set sail
But a storms drawing near as this rebellion prevails.
The sails contract as the politics collide.
A mutiny at hand.
Am I still the victim.
I used to care but now I know it wasn’t my call to make
Walk the plank this will all be over soon.
Now be brave and take that step overboard.
Walk the plank or die here on this ship.
Swim away in silence. With the richest pain of a sword
I will advance into a vicious sea.
The current’s wrath is the breath that needs my lungs.
Is there any hope, dear God will we survive?
The colors expand; so vivid so red.
With our captain betrayed this ship goes down in flames
It’s gonna happen one way dead or alive.
We’re going down and there’s only one way to survive.
Oh captain my captain I need your direction.
Our days here are numbered this glaring conviction.
Oh captain I’m drowning
This ships going down.
We’re lost out at sea.
Can we ever be found?


6. STASIS

(Instrumental)


7. WAKING

Let me grip this second chance and resume the transit I began
I see a structure up ahead so I stop to reference where I am
A fringe of land beside the sea,
A house that lingers incomplete,
A woman still remains,
She builds here everyday,
The distance keeps her safe.
Her idle views explain “You’ll be safe.”
I let her voice exhaust my strength with urgent tales of hope’s defeat
“The safest road that we can take is the one that we create
The journey’s burden beckons fear
And the harshest laws must be revered.”
I am forging my own path,
As we build this house under the shadow of death
My objective is now attached to the residence she lacks
Again I break my stride to watch her structure rise.
Beside the water I am building my future investing all
I own and keeping distance from the road.
We’re raising the walls of our future
As we sleep through illusions of shelter.
I had a dream I was suspended; staring up into a light.
Oh God I hear your jealous whisper.
I just can’t seem to reply.


8. STRUCTURE

I feel distress within her touch as
I lay the last brick in the sand.
The fear of loosing what we’ve built and this endeavor we’ve begun
Dear love we’re in dire need of something new.
Bury your face in shame if you’ve sown
Your value deep within the sand that you tread.
Actions contrary to my beliefs,
Oh God, I’ve done it again.
We drank the water from a stream
That held a battle ceased in blood.
The faith that steered my youth against a tyranny of lust
Our assurance lies in death amongst the soldiers who were slain
My commencement was sincere but now corruption is what I taste
I’m still intrigued with every lovely lie you say and
I’m content with the meaning we create.
I’ve buried my worth within the realm of her words.
This was something no one else could touch.
We’ve relinquished all the rules in this dimension
That writes fools as heroes.
Our hearts were young and ready to explore this love
But it was never ours to give them.
I walk the streets on the safest road to hell.


9. MOURNING

Beneath the roof our hands have made.
Between the walls that we have raised.
We watch the water slowly rise.
It reveals the ignorance we hide.
“Don’t you leave me now.
I will keep you safe.
You know you should stay.
You’ll never escape.”
Her words persist that we should wait.
Ignore the tragedy at stake.
My compulsion keeps me here but this decision can never be shared
If we abandon creation is there still value in our weight?
The blade of sin prompts a vague incision
But it still ruptures a lethal vein
So I place my tracks on solid ground
And from a distance I watch her drown.
Now our house is submerged with the oceans tide
And my anger swells on the notion of her demise.
I know it’s always been a choice but
I’ve petitioned for change.
I had to watch her die and now it’s time they did the same
I’ll find the city built beside the shore
But now it’s vengeance that I explore.
They’re clothed in innocence and interest and
I’m conspiring a plan.
As my wisdom screams recession it’s now their beauty I condemn
It’s gonna happen one way dead or alive.
They’re gonna burn when we set this city on fire.


10. RETRIBUTION

I watch the colors change.
The darkness consumed by flames.
Watching my past emerge inspired an arson’s urge
To burn this city down.
The prison that I’ve made myself the monster I’ve released
Ambitions that were spawned from love but blossomed into greed
Hell hath no fury like a man without a God.
We drank the water from the stream and now
I fear we’ve lost it all.
The city that marked my wrist is now an ember in my past
But with a fatal grip of chance the road is where I stand.


11. REDEMPTION

Lets rewrite tradition;
Remove corruption from our stride.
Lets rewrite tradition and appraise the meaning of our lives
I thrive on division but I’m abandoning my pride.
I’m seeking redemption, I want the love that I denied.
The laws that governed us through youth
Provoke the ventures we pursue but now this weakness
Devours my bones and the curtains begin to close.
Fear emerges with visions of death and all my sin.
Are we the parable of failure?
Sleep is such a gracious thief;
It steals my time but give me strength.
I had a dream I descending, drifting further from the light
My whisper’s begging for redemption.
Is it enough to motion life?
Dear God I come lost and seeking love.
Despite my past you’ve forgiven me.
Now I wake on the road and I rise to my feet.
I see the blood on my hands.
I’m recalling my sins.
The color fades with his touch.
Redemption runs through my blood.
Looking back on my venture; the doors they locked to keep me safe
Safe from the unknown and world
That thrives on almost everything but faith.
Running from tradition brought me to the sea.
There I found a woman waiting who offered shelter in the city
That she lived but vices sentenced me to death
Aboard a ship I was to die but the captain saw potential in my life,
When my feat touched the shore his grace was ignored and
I buried my worth in sand.
Far off the path that I began I found love but
I was forced to watch it drown.
Revenge compelled me to burn my past alive and give into my demise
But my father tells me no, “son continue on this road.”
Down this path we proceed.
Keeping faith in our reach.