Prisoner

...also known as  "Stranger, Part IV." (Parts I-III being Denial, Imitation, and Amnesia.) Still something of a work in progress, but lyrics are mostly done, so I suppose I'm ok with posting this.



Why do I still fight when I know I can't stop what's happening?
Everything makes no sense as the thought of her is maddening
I can't kill this fragment in me that's now and forever hers
Is it even past I wish to see, or dreams that never were?

She remains the heart's infection
And I can't keep up self-deception
Delusion fails and my protection dies

I'm prisoner still to Miss Direction
For though I see through false perceptions
In so-called progress, still, regressions hide

Now at my best, I'm just an approximation of "ok"
Mourning the friend I trusted, wishing I could run away
Distractions can't sedate when simple truth still shatters me
Never thought my one safety would make me wish for apathy

She remains...

Amnesia

Once more, for a lost friend.

To clarify, while it may be a song about love, this is not a love song.

Plain Text: Verse
Italics: Chorus

I just want to forget
And wake up fine again
Nevermore haunted by ghosts of a friend

Daily I agonize
That wishes won't suffice
Faced with this truth I can't help but despise

Why do I remember?

Even ten thousand words couldn't start to explain
How I wish I could purge my whole heart of her name
But it seems now the best I could ever see
Is selectiveness in my own memory
Each day amnesia remains my one plea

Since I can't deny the truth
What's left that I can do?
I can't survive giving into these wounds

I just want to set this right
So sunset can fade to night
And I can stop burning in her blinding light

Why...

Even ten thousand...

Father

For my sister, but to the bastard who'd rather not admit that I exist.

(Disclaimer: Since the lyrics are vague, I thought I'd clarify that this is about her father, not mine.)

Father
We've established there's nothing she can do
So why should she bother
Wasting effort to prove herself to you?

Just what do you think your approval's worth?
It'll never measure up to what you've done to her
Don't you see that as you tighten she slips
Through your iron grip?

Father
You don't even think I deserve the truth
So why should I bother
Wasting effort to prove myself to you?

Did you convince yourself I'd never know?
Or underestimate how much your failure shows?
Don't you see that you can't wish me away,
Try as you may?

Father
You can call us rejected and refused
But we don't care to bother
Wasting effort to prove ourselves to you

It's not as if we've got much left to lose
So go ahead and call this war if you so choose
Just don't expect us to keep sitting in your sights
Afraid to fight

Refuge

Judgmental glares still call me nothing
Trying to break me each new day
So what if war is unbecoming?
Not that it matters now what anyone may say

This frozen castle is my refuge
Now they can't touch me, look and see it in these eyes
So what if I'm left with the refuse?
I'm fine alone; I make my home behind walls of ice

Anti-society is draining
Solitude's showing its effect
But still I'm safe; I'm not complaining
Besides, who can I trust enough to connect?

This hollow castle is my refuge
No one can touch me; you can't even see these eyes
Try as you may, you'll never get through
I'm satisfied, here where I hide, behind walls of ice

Connection-starved
I can't get far
Living this so-called "freedom" from a soul in shards

And so they fall
My precious walls
"Survival of the coldest" was worthless after all

This broken castle was my refuge
Where will I run now? There's no shelter I can find
You reach to touch; I just might let you
Now you can see right into me, through shattered ice

Imitation

For the girl I no longer know...


Now I'm just a tossed-out friend
Loyal to her spectre
Wishing things were as before
But still I can't forget her
Though she discarded all her ties
Her former face I still see
Changed beyond recognition
Gone's the girl I knew named...

She destroyed my only friend
This girl I thought I knew
Does this imposter understand
The hell she's put me through
She's imitation at her best
And it's more clear with time
I simply can't find any rest
When she haunts my mind

And so girl I'd called a friend
It seems is now a stranger
Why can't I just ignore her face,
Knowing who replaced her?
I can't continue to abide
Poisoned affection in me
Now I can only ask myself
Who is this girl named...

She destroyed...

I hate that I still wish for times gone by
And seeing once again the friend I loved has long been dead
I don't recognize the one behind her eyes
As all my memories of her turn to regret


She destroyed...

Blindside

My laughter comes from irony
And it's through sarcasm I breathe
Though it may seem a bit pretentious

Yet somehow I begin to find
I always miss it when it's mine
Until it's too late to prevent it

Situations have always shown
That I should have already known
What would happen far before it blew up in my face

Irony is my amusement, yet my enemy
I must concede it's so confusing, to miss what I of all people should see
A smartass shouldn't get caught up in poetic defeats
O why does irony blindside me?

Again I'm lovestruck like a fool
And I can't seem to play it cool
So she determines I'm just creepy

And once I see where I went wrong
I put repentance into song
But even more she'd rather never see me

I tell this girl who can't stand me
To call it my apology
But once again it all just blows up in my face

Irony is...

It seems that I've boxed myself in
Time to break my limits again
And finally find a new inspiration

Yet obligation comes today
To once again make my muse pain
And so my plan develops complications

After this come ire and love
And I wonder, is this a sign from above
That things will still continue to just blow up in my face?

Irony is...

Guidelines

For Tyler, Justin, and various others from back home.


Such is your claim
That you speak in the Name
That embodies peace
Yet daily you wage war with me

Self-righteous eyes
Tell me that I'm despised
He said "Show love to all,"
But you just want to watch me crawl

You think I'm shaking, and I'm breaking;
Well you're mistaken
I'm simply sickened by this
Twisted game you're playing
You think you're better
Because of your holy shelter
You live to serve your tradition to its very letter

You say that action shows your faith
But laws you follow all prove fake
You see this Word of God as man-amended guidelines

You make it clear what you expect:
No questions, just a blind respect
You call me hypocrite, but isn't that still my line?

Who are you to say how I'm defined?

You can't believe
That I don't agree
You think I live in sin
Because I break commands that don't exist

Your "love" assumes
Because you don't approve
That somehow it's my place
To suffer a pariah's fate

You think I'm breaking...

You say that...

Waste

Italics: Chorus
Bold: Bridge
Plain Text: Verse, Pre-Chorus

That boy approached his father; such an ungrateful son
He wanted everything, and now; this greedy, faithless one
The world was calling him, and to its arms he'd go running
He said "You're dead to me, so give me now what I've got coming"

And as my righteous teacher passed on the story
I soon was sobered by the shocking truth laid out before me:


I'm no more than living waste; a walking glitch within the system
Crashing from place to place, living my aimless existence
I'll squander gold, and precious treasure
I'll sell my life away for just one momentary pleasure

He soon went crawling back again; he'd gone and lost it all
Finding that he could only beg after his foolish fall
He'd given into greed, and thus couldn't sustain his fortune
And learned at all to high a cost prudence's great importance

And as my righteous teacher finished his story
I soon was frightened by the shocking truth laid out before me:

I'm no more than living waste; a useless bug within the system
Crawling from place to place; hedonism's my religion
Just what is "labor"? I don't get it?
But if I don't learn quick, I'm well aware that I'll regret it

But I need not be like him
I can survive without succumbing to the lusts within
With temperance I can be free
But for my fate to change, I must be the change I wish to see in me

Denial

For an old friend...

Italics: Chorus
Plain Text: Verse

I walked into church again; another Sunday night
And saw the stranger I'd once called a friend
But everything had changed; now none of it was right
Though I was just too blind to see it then

So it seems that old wounds never heal
And I can't lie to my own heart
I still don't know why I can't just deal
But she still makes me fall apart


I must wonder what happened to her
What changed this girl with sunset hair?
Now I can only wish things were as they were
As she keeps pretending I'm not there

So it seems...

Seeing her, I burn for what's past
As, again, epiphany hits me
As much as it crushes me, I can't change the fact
That I no longer know this girl named...

Habit

Italics: Chorus
Bold: Bridge
Plain Text: Verse

You seem to always catch me
However far or fast I run
As soon as sight distracts me
My reason quickly comes undone
As needles promise rapture
Obsession courses through my veins
I'd so believed she'd captured me
But I'd already been in chains

Now self-destruction has become my expertise
I carry on somehow, still unaware that I'm diseased
Is it love or is it simply lust? I can't see
Not that it matters when in all I do I know she'll run from me

These fortress walls surround me
But in this cell you still won't die
Now your infection's bound me
And solitude can't satisfy
So now I seek another
Whom I can trust within these walls
This longing I've discovered
Will wear me down until I crawl

My self-destructing heart is twisted and depraved
Whatever rationale I had is rotting in the grave
I'm blindly searching, so oblivious to what I crave
So desperate for connection I've become infatuation's slave

As my obsession feeds
Warping my every need
My surface is pristine, but within I bleed incessantly
 
This desperate heart's addiction
My terminal affliction
Is finally clear to me, the root of my waking perdition

My self-destruction is obsession's battle cry
As I discover my sobriety's just one more lie
I can't tell how to stop myself; I only know that I
Must break away before I break in vain pursuit of one more high