they see only shadows

on the boundary of reason you lead a recovery
to stay in the lines at the cost of your sanity
you’re not meant to be like them

you will paint a reflection that you’ll never be
and you will die for brilliance veiled in foundations of lies and deceit
and you will hide everything about you that’s anything but flawless

you cut out the heart of the person you could’ve been
you trade in your conscience for somebody else’s skin
once altered to taste you’ll see what you’ve feared
the image you’ve sought for so many years
is far from as perfect as the things you used to see

and yet you still paint a reflection that you’ll never be
and you would die for brilliance veiled in foundations of lies and deceit
and once you hide everything about you that’s anything but flawless
and they have shattered an exception and that’s when you’ll see
they have won

we can only see
the beauty buried beneath
can’t you see my dear
you are all you have left to fear

like this you mean

you have embraced the awful
a petty excuse for an author
scripted a false conviction
cast out what you believed in

and here we are
a vain attempt to light the dark
you’ll never see that this is love
a constant chance to rise above
and we’re not coming down

you want to be the answer you’ve defined
and you won’t ever question why
so go ahead and revel in what you’ve revised
you didn’t change a thing this time

i had no doubt you would edit the meaning out
but like all clichés you will lie in the bed you’ve made

right your wrong and write yourself out
here we are, and we’re not coming down

you want to be the answer you’ve defined
and you won’t ever question why
so go ahead and revel in what you’ve revised
you didn’t change a thing this time

cast in the pattern

i’m just the letter lost and better left unfound
the vessel of redemption cut loose and run aground
i am the messenger that never made a sound

right now i might as well be lost in reverie
no cause left for the consciousness you ever could call me

content with defeat i tell myself that this is who i am
that i planned to be this apathetic
a pathetic lack of plans, i’ll resign with but a sigh
forget there ever was a reason why

i was trying to be something
in a home that doesn’t want me
it’s better being nothing
when it’s all i’ve ever been

right now i might as well be lost in reverie
no cause for the consciousness you ever could call me
i would rather die than live with what i’ll never become

…and to those who carry on

everybody meets their end
some will leave as they began
in a hospital bed at their time
sometimes we’re taken away
stolen back to where we came
i never believed you would die
at twenty nine

all along we’re meant for this
moving forward to exist
we live on and we will never be whole again
but i just wish you’d open your eyes and you’d wake up

and you’d see what you’ll never see
and this time all of our ends would meet
but it seems even the best of dreams will fade
and we all end up the same
only a memory

the sound of letting go

you preach to the deafened
your voices speak to no one
your droning drowns in its own decay
you fail your lessons
by mimicking the echoes
that cry for you to find your own way
you have defied them

this is everything that you deserve
know the horror of the wrong you’ve earned
when you’re the helplessness you sing about
only i can save you

so i hold in every breath
until the air in me begs to forget
that it ever found peace in my lungs
and it screams up my throat to my tongue
it forms the words that end this all
the moment beckoning to fall
with a wind bellowed deep from my chest
at last i’ve begun the collapse

i tremble with the sound of letting go
the wretched ring of everything i had in me
my heart unfurled, i exorcise the silence from this world

this is everything that you deserve
this is what you’ve forgotten

skyline

we have shrouded our lives
in the shadow of infinite night
but i still look to the skyline
and know we’ll see the light