Degradation

Why do we think it a full life when I do little but much is done to me?
Why do we think it an empty life when I do much but little is done to me?

Easier to stand in line, even if I don't know what for.
Easier to mute my mind, ever amused and used and bored.

Easier to hold onto what I've been handed.
Easier than making the effort to reach.

The struggles I struggle with are expectations.
The true villain is not time, but the clock.

Forgeries Upon Forgeries

Open eyes flicker firefly signs
Across ocean skylines
Phone calls on hardlines
Try to remind me of who I am
And who I could be among the rest of them
The best of them is still less than when
We were the kings and queens of a foreign land
We had flower crowns and roots in the earth
We were worth more at birth than the girth of their mirth
It was easy to hold onto heaven when we were in hell
But the promises we make we can only undersell
If everyone is here, then where is everyone else
I look across the room and meet eyes with myself
The wealth of nations has paid for a funeral dirge
But I urge you to stay for the reception
There will be laughter and tears and one hundred years
Of more homemade, patriotic deception

The stabbing pain you feel is normal, I'm sure
I'm well aware of the lidless hours your eyes have spent waiting
If time is worth taking then, waking, we'll be there
(Where is love found more than in an abundance of hating?)

Fraudulent Fascination

I don't know how to ask you
I don't know how to say
How much you ripped me to pieces
And spread me across the barren earth

I don't know how to convince you
I don't know how to tread
So just maybe you'll respond in kind
Instead of hiding from me all over again

I don't know what you want
And I'm too afraid to ask
Why did you run
Should I have been waiting?