I saw the barren street,
Full of empty sound.
Children looking for some place to be,
With no one around.
Such a proud people once roaming free.
The marks you left on this land are clear.
I see it on the rocks, etched in stones.
A wisdom forgotten,
Of stars above and seasons long ago.
Now that's slipped into eternity,
But I still see the proud gleam
When you sing,
The chant a rhythmic pulse.
I feel the dance of your feet against the ground
And I know this empty land still calls you home.
I smile when I hear your drums
To a life buried but not gone.
I live not far though this is not my own.
This land knows and these mountains speak,
The red of this ground flows in you,
Children of the ground.

Languages die and the faces change
Names fall away and cultures die.
Once we worshiped gods,
Now that's changed.
When asked of the divine,
Our answer was simple on the divide.
Gods never die and men always do,
So raise your glasses of wine
And drink to our dying kind.
The mortal life is fading light,
Greeks and Romans knew this plight
As did many others who lived this life.
No matter your race or creed
Let's dance one last time.
We have the fate of dying,
Each and every time.
For the undying watch,
In grim murmurs
Of mortal life.

I shouldn't walk away
But it's tempting,
The burden doesn't seem worth the weight
How do I escape?
This cycle of my hate
Idealistic till my dying day
If only I could find passion for my life
It may be worth the wait.

Strung up for all to see
Hanging lifelessly
I see no reason to think you mighty.
It's one thing to ****
Another to hang it like a morbid trophy
No respect for the life it was,
Return it to the field and let it be
A beauty it once was even if you couldn't see.
Hanging corpses by the roadside
What have we become?
Or have we returned to the Romans of old?
Maybe some dumb kids with nothing better to do but chase a Coyote.
It hangs,
A sign we still have far to come
Before we can claim we are humanity.

Wish I could say it's been easy,
Some say it's been a long time coming.
Now I'm here and all I can do is stand,
Looking out to a horizon of emptiness.
An endless sea brushing against me,
Once it thrashed me against the rocks
I learned not to care.
It's been a long time
And this place seems like nowhere.
I've come this far on will alone,
Now I stand at the edge,
Watching my life go
Looking for a glimpse of hope
That I'm alright despite what's told.

If you could take it all away,
Would you?
Every regret and hurtful thing?

I look at them some days,
Finding them disgusting in every way,
But if I wash them away,
Scrub the pain till it's raw and fades,
I find myself staring at an empty space.
A bitter thing to find,
That your suffering was by design.
Leaving no choice but to make a place,
Build some sturdy shelves
And embrace the pain.

It makes you whole,
Defining you in little lines
Of how you love or hate,
If you can lose or find peace in simple things.
I'd keep them all,
Every hurtful thing.
Fill my shelves
So someday I can count how many times I fell to my knees,
A library of my deceit.
Written in books I'll feel complete,
That my life was a challenge and not once did I give up on the journey.