Absolution

(album: The Balancing Act - 2008)

I write in long hand a short-term memory
Hopeless romantic, coarse word tendencies
Right now I don't want to wake up
Or try to forget when the storm first entered me
Lately I've felt self destructive
Self-inflicted, self help the cuts with
Shell shocked, Hell's bells and trumpets
Self-taught to tell tales in public
Of this life, same shit but different day
I write it down, same shit in different ways
Fight it now, break fists against the cage
Until I climb on that slave ship and drift away
My blood boils (in cups) the sun spoils (abrupt)
And unloyal (with love) so come toil (with us)
The sun freezes (and cuts) in some seasons (and plus)
Its untreated (so trust) I'm done bleeding
In a place where I can be and touch all of the things I see
To find my peace and I can breathe with nobody looking back at me
I'll just take a breath and place my bets but never deal
'Til I face my death with a game of chess like Seventh Seal
I'll still fight the step-dads and memories
Scream Zion 'til deaf dance to melodies
Deadpanned with setbacks and jealousy
Until hea-ven ex-pands the hell in me
Acquired conscious competence of all of my accomplishments
And conquered constant comments that contradicted my confidence
Common compliments were called upon to con me in
Accosted consonant comments that condescended all my common sense
Where I'm from, no one stays alive
You just die by the sword, a shogun's frame of mind
Walk with the rest like its Dawn of the Dead
And drink from the blood that the open veins provide
My raps are like a novel with clever style and prose
I'm Edgar Allan Poe, the Cask of Amontillado
Enter catacombs 'til clever palindromes
And letters that I wrote can capture the God Apollo

Hear the secret stammers time'll tell
I rebel, they teach me manners with a Bible-belt
Schtick, psychedelic, dreams of banter
Scenes of candor I embellish
Like a zombie that eats through tissue
Until I find a heart with a beat to spit to
If its not in the meat I sift through
I'll write it acapella on the piece I bit through
I'm savage, and its near the dead of night
Wait 'til the sun paints an iridescent sky
To head the deadened cries
Of an old boy given no choice but to fear the present time

Take the reigns, I'm sick and tired of the practice
Of burning bridges, I lit the fire with a matchstick
Return the image to where I'm at, cus thinking back
I've been sinking fast, and tripping wires where the sands quick
Across plains with bloody palms and jaw pains
Hiding from God's grace in fright like its Pompeii
And always, I'll just stay on the lost road
While you study crucifixes painted with barcodes
And this time, I'll just try my luck
Surrounded by these masks like it's eyes wired shut
And I might jump ship or I flip like it's my live bus
So I try trust with how it was or how it is when
Frowns insist sounds of love amount to this
Too proud to kiss so I sewed my lips shut
So love drowned within the open wrist cuts
At first its just a ride to live fast
Until I felt the bruises inside from whiplash
A purpose, I'll try to get that
Until I fall from grace and I die on impact
And intact was a single broken locket
With the ocean on its rustic chain and face that no one wanted
I'm growing nauseous from a world that never stops
When my center's lost hope in the ghost that haunted Pentecost
I stand in graveyards and dance to take charge
Of concepts of death that I have to base on
Even when my bones crack I'll pace on
Through the epitaphs that my pasts engraved on
Laugh and stay strong, embrace the day
'Till it fades away with this mask I paint on

She's probably just a bitch that's casting all the shadows
Laughing at my battles and following a trend
Searching for an angel at the bottom of a fifth
But my hands stay empty, I swallow it again
Its the loss of leaves that autumn brings
That show me these limbs are far from wings
I'm far from happy, you're far from peace
I'll fall from grace and you'll fall for me
And awkwardly I'll just change my posture
'Till the aches and pains rearrange the monsters