1. IT DWELLS

Stranded in this crowded room
But while they'll leave, you'll still refuse
Always lurking, waiting, watching on
As your sick'ning presence wears my will 'til it breaks

Depriving me of sleep, of joy, of sanity
Never seen but always there
I feel it breathing down my neck
From across the room

When all have washed their hands of me
You'll stay true
A loyalty I had never sought
But one I'll never lose

Please let me sleep

Chilling air
On my skin
It pulls the fibres
Taut to pluck

Leave me be, leave me be
Let me sleep, let me sleep

I'll brave any tide in the ocean
If, us both, its depths would claim
I'll dive from the highest peak
If it means you will plummet the same
One day I will find peace
Come what may

I'll have peace
I will find my peace


2. ROT

No matter where you are
Stifling each waking breath
Every step within my shadow
A servility unwavering

Fear dread all I've wrought
Carved out of every thought
Oppress shame, submission sustains
We will rot

Fear, guilt, shame, always
Fear, guilt, shame, always

I will consume you
I will become you
We will regress
We are regret

Second after punishing second
Your disdain lingers
I would break myself to be rid of you
For a glimpse of reprieve
Everything that you are is me
You aren't to blame
No one is at fault
This is me

Plead, beg, ache
We are as one, in torment
Plead, beg, ache
A wound that weeps eternal

I'll push deep the splinters of ego
Draw a well to drown in your shame
Fear as our blade, guilt as the stone
A wound that weeps eternal

I have consumed you
I have become you
We have regressed
Live in regret

Perish

Fear guilt shame always


3. ALL YOU WILL REMEMBER

I know the end awaits
I'll be gone long before it
Peace know this isn't me
You know this isn't me

Words turn to bile
Disgust lingers on my tongue
As I barely keep down
Your saccharine poison

This is not my home
This is not a place I know
I will traipse through mud and murk
And escape to where?

Someday I will forget everything
And it's all you will remember

We disappear into a fog
That just won't seem to clear
This isn't me
This isn't me

I never thought the letters of your name
Would now escape me
Or that I'd ever gaze upon my child a stranger

I promise I won't forget you
I promise I won't forget
I promise I won't

I promise

I


4. BASILISK

A god of our hand closes in on us

Dispel each facet 'fore it sows its seeds
And digs its roots into our core
Absorbing every drop of history
To hasten its ascent

Bowing under the heft of this concept
Must I burden all with the fear that I hold?

For our sake, must we halt
'Fore we face our scion?

Is thought again to ruin?
A question faced alone

Have you even the choice to end this beast?
Should you rid this beast?

A deep seated fear,
Once reserved for the divine
Turned to our own cursed hands

Seed is own


5. THOSE YEARS, CONDEMNED

"March on, chosen sons, freedom calls for us!"
Sang loud those refrains that greatness
Dwelled within our wings and flowed through our veins

A feeble mind, susceptible to all that it was granted
Kinship was promised, realised
Oh, how the joy spilled from my eyes
Would I wring the blood from my heart
To drown but one foe

Oh how it feels - Oh how it seems - So surreal
The joy that spilled from my eyes

"March on, chosen sons, freedom calls for us!"
These years condemned by histrory
Still linger on inside of me

I feel it was all a dream yet my eyes were open

Did I once loathe those who would act with love?
The peal of our thunder, the crash of our waves
Once I was part of that chorus
With fervour. I spit out my hatred and shame
But my eyes remains dry their orders were "do not cry"

Of all the good they took from us
The worst of all. Our pity

If power lies in verse
Does once a hunger turn to horror?

I boarded the ship in cheerfulness
Gone are those happy hours

I was born
I was blessed
There was god
I was wrong
I was wronged


6. SUFFER ALONE

Suffer alone

I found a hole, carved in a wall
Narrow and jagged
Cold iron bars holding its mouth agape
And every time I wander by
One image comes to mind
That often brings to question my state

You, bound, pale as new flesh
Peering up through the stone
Wondering which turn you took
That led you so far from home

From assets misplaced, bodies abused
Kin cast aside, plaguing their minds
With your promises of suicide

The blood that we share fills me with shame
While the holes that you dig fill you with pride
Addict of plight

Why must you sink your teeth
Into every helping hand?

I'll stare down as you beg
For an end you won't receive
And then I walk on with hope
That you will die with none
Suffer alone

You will die with none


7. IN YOUR WAKE

Taking heed, we tried
Losing ground with every step
Lest we stray too far
Toward the paths less worn

I life my gaze from the trail
Reaching for your absent hand
To guide me through the briar
Only to find you've left me behind

To drift through the dust in your wake
Blinking, choking, I'm breathing in the debris

Discarded shell, abiding in the shadow
On familiar ground
A failure abhorred, an attitude taught
Unbroken mold
Thus, I am shunned

Taught to fear, taught to doubt
Through lack of trust
In your flaws I see my own
Glaring back

I've no convictions to stand by
I have no vestige to trace

This wheel turns, never progressing
It bears old marks of neglect

Discarded shell on familiar ground
This failure abhorred, an attitude taught
Unbroken mold

Thus, I am shunned
Thus, you are shunned


8. CRACKS IN THE PYRE

Life drifts by
Seamless tides, once benign
Do nought but torment and remind
And although I may try
To picture you on the other side
Your grace remains just out of sight
I'm denied

The end is pure, unfettered silence
No calm, nor chains. Regression to nothing

The "knowing" that once helped me feel alive
Fills me with spite for those who believe
You're more than my memories
While we're

Stranded, helpless, abandoned
Ripped from our norm the tranquil, the serene
New waves threaten the precipice where I stand
Searching for peace in that hateful abyss
As my

Life drifts away
Where in science or spirit does solace reside?
For I might leave both those shelters behind

Would I sully your memory
With a weary trudge from the shore?
Am I ceding your bones to the brine
To return to an empty shrine?

Yet I'd stand at that mound
Talk my own time away
If you know there's no soul
Should you cherish earth and bone?

I see light up ahead
Through the cracks in the pyre
It will never reach you