1. MUTE PRINT

Take this record. Start with self-mockery.
A master work of toilet tissue, but the words are sexy.
To a happy corpse; washed up, I am already.
I went from a romantic dream to a wet spot on the sheets.
Give it one last try til the next one more last try.
I'm not renting this planet. It's all mine.
I could not compete with my old body.
I pushed it too hard. It fell apart on me.
We are alone, with the tranquil.
We are alone. And it offsets fear for the nights.
You're upset? Don't believe your eyes.
This mute print lies.


2. FAMOUS FRIENDS AND FASHION DRUNKS

Rule one is hang up your phone,
because if you knew what's next,
you'd never chase another dream again.

All you wanted was an answer, not just to suffer.
Who are you weighing down?
All you wanted was the offer, not just to suffer.
And it's not the end.

Rule six is to hold that tongue.
Because you're fucked if you forget
rules three and four and five were made by them.

All you wanted was an answer, not just to suffer.
Who are you weighing down?
All you wanted was the offer, not just to suffer.

But down the road,
you'll want to shut me out instead.
Right.

Shut me out.
You'll want to shut me out.
Shut me out.
You'll fit in real well.
[x2]

Successful. Shock the world.
But you'll never learn.
People units sold.
You can drop the role.
Let's call us what we are now.


3. ANCHOR END

The worst writers are the ones who fuck up happy endings.
The best ones don't bother to type.

I've been writing you a letter in my head for months with no reply.
When did your interest in me die?
Take this sickening shiv I cut all my friends off with.
I lie to those who love me by reciprocating.
I wish I felt sincere inside.
When I needed you to make me needy, how surprising!
You needed nothing of mine.
Take this sinking ship I'll take all my friends down with because all my friends are anchor end.
Piss, drunks, and love. These too are found in gutters. I won't throw up.
I'm smarter now.


4. WILLIAM BLAKE OVERDRIVE

I will make myself, a mile from the racetrack, drag my losses home.
It kills me not come back.
And we float with parasites all our lives.
There's me with the geriatrics at the slot machines.
There's me, the embodiment of how slow life can be.
There's me. Their dead eyes are glowing. Mine are always shut.
I passed out on the road, just hours from the racetrack.
I saw Lamotta raise a toast.
He said "you got me with the right jab."
And we float with parasites all our lives with this advice we learn until we're dead.
Be losers til your sanguine thoughts subside.
We learn until we're dead.
A falling dream's not just a morbid sign.
It's opportunity.
These days I find beauty as depressing as years beyond my time.
If you could make this old heart young again I'd find another topic to drone on,
a more fashionable vice to lean on.
Some better words to speak on that escaped my younger form.
But there's me with the geriatrics at the slot machines.
There's me. The embodiment of how slow life can be.
There's me. Short of imposing, please be involved.
Can I stop imploding at every obstacle thrown on me?
Imply this is only a prettier glimpse of a life so ugly that's mine.


5. BRAND NEW ME, SAME SHITTY YOU

Catch me.
I'm a wreck who let my conscience down.
I bet the animals sleep well after they hunt.

Someone open up a fucking window.
Something just fucking died in here.
It's been breathing fucking heavy for a long fucking time now
and it's lost its fucking will to survive.
Oh no!

And what's so sick,
so wrong that you don't want to believe
that such a massacre is capable of coming from me?
You're gonna lose your lunch.
It's gonna blow your mind.

But hold it down.
Hold it down.
But hold it down.
Hold it down.

Catch me
if you can but don't fall for what you've found.
I bet the animals don't think of what they've done.

Flip the fucking lever on the light switch.
Turn that fucking fan all the way up.
I'm gonna get first fucking place for the worst fucking attitude
and I don't give a fuck at all.
Oh no!

I don't feel so old. I'm smiling again.
If you don't feel sorrow, then I've already failed.
I don't feel so old. Warm blood's pumping in.
You don't feel sorrow, but I'm already there 'cause tonight...
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I'm gonna fire 'em back 'cause tonight
I'm gonna fire 'em back 'cause tonight
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I'm gonna go for the middle tonight
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I'm gonna fire 'em back 'cause tonight
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I'm gonna go for the middle tonight
I've taken all of the insults tonight
I'm gonna fire 'em back...

Hold it down, hold... (when you go)
Hold it down, hold... (when you go)

You ignore my resolve while my conscience clings to life.
But I stomped the heart out of it, hoping that it dies.
You ignore my resolve while my conscience clings to life.
But I stomped the heart out of it, hoping that it dies.


6. THE RIP

Fuck genius. What's an artist? Dead words devoid of meaning. Let's drop them.
I know where they can go, but your neck is blocking the hole. Let's start from zero.
Now, listen close.
This is a rip "The scream that ignites the world?"
We're slaves to radios. We're not worth shit to talk to.
This is the pen that won't cauterize the wound. Whose plan to follow?
It feels like your own. It's an insult. You've fallen for it.
It feels like your own. It's your anthem, as jaded as its source.
The anemic. The pale, the sullen. An albumis evidence. I believed that shit.
Here, stuck in radios. No one's worth shit to talk to. These were my heroes.
Now they're all jokes.
This is a rip. 'The scream that ignites the world?"
We're slaves to radios. We're not worth shit to talk to.
This is the pen that won't cauterize the wound. Whose plan to follow?
It feels like your own. Itis an insult. You've fallen for it.
It feels like your own. It's your anthem, as jaded as its source.
The ceiling is waiting.
And you follow like it mattered if you did.
And it dropped you on your head cuz you took yourself for granted.
Heartless and headstrong. Jump right over the bodies. Life's a race. It's an obstacle course.
Hide, but you'll never have a choice when you go.
They would have noticed you if they had known, but you're fucked.
They'll only love you when you're gone,
or barely hanging on to all your organs and dignity while you're rotting in hospitals.
Don't believe it? It's not your fault. You're just worthless. You're one in a million.
Where is god? The ornament,
the holiday song whored out on reading materials in latrines and porta-johns?
Don't believe this.
You're not worthless. It's us against millions and we can't take them all.
But we can take them on.


7. RETIRING

Another jog through hell, but why are you pacing?
We're not out of the woods.
If this lesson fails, could I pack up and leave? I wonder if I could.
No, I cannot ignore. I cannot abort.
No, I cannot afford to lose what I am owed.
To my esteemed colleagues, who smiled when they met me and hoped that I would fail,
forget the kind words told, and the complimentaries.
All you fucks can go to hell.
I guess I've known it all, but I could not refuse to go.
I cannot ignore. I cannot abort.
No, I cannot afford to lose what I am owed.
Another jog through hell, and here we are pacing.
We burnt down the fucking woods.
I guess their lessons failed with one target remaining.
It's back to Hollywood.


8. STAB, STAB, STAB

If I can then I will twist
this knife until it snaps
at the hilt to make you feel
this damage done is real.

When will I recover from
a wound that never heals?
The answer's always never.
Forget November and suffer with a smile.

Blood soaked t-shirt worn only once and left
wet to remind me never to turn my back on you again.
Counting all the days and nights since I've slept
and you're not alone?
How could anything this tragic
turn into a laughing matter.
Am I not alone?

Just because you're rotting
doesn't mean you're dead.
It doesn't make you loved.
You just got lost in it.
We both love the money,
we all love our friends.
It doesn't make us pricks.
We just keep falling in.

I can't rest, my neck's too stiff.
Is this remorse or hindsight making me delirious?
With a goodnight kiss these bloody lips
whisper something about rats and sinking ships.

Blood soaked t-shirt worn only once and left
wet to remind me never to turn my back on you again.
Counting all the days and nights since I've slept
and you're not alone?
How could anything this tragic
turn into a laughing matter.
Am I not alone?

Leave me lifeless.
(A bloody whisper from your lips.)
Leave me lifeless.
(Forget November, suffer this.)

A lie, if you don't believe.
A lie. That's how we live our lives.
if you don't believe.
A lie. That's how we live our lives.


9. A PICTURE OF THE WORLD

I was fucking up, handing off the reigns to you.
I know the bodies, but I can't place names, so I should be forgetting you.
It's a cathartic song like that other shitty one and I have never felt so old.
I'd cool off and sleep it away,
but it's a hot fucking day and I've got my afternoons alone because you won't let him go.
You let your feelings oscillate.
I was out of the running without warning to find out the worst fucking way.
But every move that I missed I will take out on another one.
Because if we all get close and miss then we are to take the short end of the stick and dish it out.
Is there someone who wants to know? It's the same old shit though.
Everyone's gotta love the miserable. That's what they're in it for.
If there's a positive to your dramatic actions, block my ears so I'm not privy to it.
This karmic debt is screwed.
And I know why.
I want to burn this picture of the world where all my thoughts reside.
I'm gonna burn this picture of the world for all my friends and I.
This picture's proving now that I'm used to falling down.
Don't leave me down.
An ardent call for resolution, or a wordy premiss of old?
I can sleep tonight, but it's gonna be a long fucking time before my comic debt is going to grow.
Because you won't let him go.
Time will take its revenge, not just me.
Lost is the prospect of goals met. I'm 22 years closer to death.
I would have found that hard to believe when I was 15.
Familiar failure is all I know. Please forgive me if it shows,
but I won't stop until this beats me, or I go crazy.


10. KURSK

The voices are silent echoes. This is the hardest part.
The water's up to our ankles with no sign of letting up.
But I'm still climbing out.
I always meant to tell you that I never meant you harm in this life.
I'll have to wait until the next to make things right.
I'm tapping s.o.s. codes on the wall, but this is as far as it goes.
I'm writing my regret notes from the heart.
I never loved you, you know.
Because I'm riding a lie and I'm writing a lie.
I took a chance and we're paying for the lie.
I'm writing "I know the fault's all mine", but please stay strong.
If they remember me, will they forget the meaning of why I came so far to drown?
I'm forgetting it myself.
I find I'm staring at these rusty bolts this hatch was attached to.
My eyes are glued. This coffin moves, angled down.
The skeletal walls are brittle. The salt corrodes it off.
Your spent oxygen fogs the metal. You're taking greedy breaths from us but I forgive you all.


11. DREAMING OF THROWING UP

So I'm looking at this bottle, and this bottle, it speaks to me.
It says get off the fucking train, so I jumped down.
These metaphors are for assholes, and I'm not different. I'll get to what I mean, but slowly.
Roses and poetry; that's all you want to be?
It's not alive, and not dead. It's looking for a reason to be.
Not alive, and not dead. You give me goals impossible and I get further from my own.
If these were lies then I wouldn't be leaving. You had to need me.
I tried this once before. It's just as insulting. What for?
It's not alive, and not dead. Looking for a reason to be?
Can we find a balance, a medium?
My anger was a heavy weight you bore. Now I'm balancing meteors. I want to see you.

But not alive, and not dead. Show me what you used to be.
I was looking at this bottle and the words made sense to me, because it was all a fucking dream.
A lie.
I'm not alive, and I'm not dead.
I just see my goals are impossible and I get further from them all.
These mocking words. We buried both.
What a world without you holds, I had to know.