Smoke & Mirrors

Oh dear God I've lost my mind.

I am hungry for more,

For satisfactory,

For licking the glass ceiling,

And crippling myself with pretty debt

In the bullshit search for something

That exists in the skulls of people

Buried six feet under with their cash.

Perseverance is a myth.

There is the relentless pursuit

Of death.

Oh dear God, I've lost my fucking mind.

I lost it, I lost it, I lost it in the gutter,

Watched it roll down the street,

And disintegrate

Because at some point I realized

That good was better than bad

But that great was better than good

And I would cut off my fucking right hand

To sniff a little of the best.

I don't have it, I don't have it, I don't fucking have it!

Whatever the best is it stays

Far out of my measly reach

And I am stuck to the filthy floor

Dreaming about stars with one half

Of my head cleaved open by the demands

Sanity makes of me while the other half

Spits and drools in useless riddles.

I am turning to smoke and mirrors.

I cry for the spider with nothing in his web

And ache for the fly that's fallen for the trap.

I am cemented to the soil by this

Rotting sense of justice

While the word turns to shit and dances

On the graves of the damned.

I'd ask for a bullet but I know you'd give it.

There is a precious scarcity to life

But I want to bang my head open

And let these poisoned thoughts

Dribble to the floor with this

Wounded grey matter

That's forced my primitive brain

To slide into the front seat and drive.

I am smoke, no mirrors, fading away.

My morality has been explored

By society's expert carving knife

And I am sorry to say now

That all that is left is smoke and mirrors,

The fading traces of royalty

Lost to the shadowed corners of my blood

And I am nothing but the fading echo

Of a post-rock guitar string

Deciding whether or not to scream.

I dream of dreaming but it never comes.

Oh, I scream.

I open my mouth and let the blood

Pour out of the hemorrhaging wounds

This society has opened within me.

I am the slam of the instruments,

Gritty and unforgiving.

My blood is sour and I've no qualms

About letting it pour into the drinking water

Because if they wanted to watch me bleed,

Then they can handle a little touch

Of the same toxicity they fed to me.

There is nothing left of who I was.

I will slam like a lost bird

Into the glass of their reflections

And let my crippled corpse

Teach them the lesson of a mother's love

Because life is no cruel teacher,

Death is.

Where do I go when I've faded at last?

I am fading.

The last bits of smoke curl

In the cold winter sky.

Smoke is no eternal thing,

And so neither am I.

Oh God. I've lost my mind.