They don't realize -
None of them do
Relapse
Of a different kind
Into the strife
And the hate and the fighting
And the tears and the pain
And the so-called rebellion
That tears us all apart with no end in sight
Moral or immoral

And there's no one
There's no one for this kind of pain
No one to hold
To hear
To cry with you
Or to even see the tears.

They're gone now though
And tomorrow's another day.

They pass without time
Through the glaring white light
That blue chair stuck there wavering wobbling
And then still
Finally still
Forever still
As the light slices through
Spreading and cutting
Vicious and precise
Those jabs of pity and melancholy

That we send out to space to crush those stars
So burdened from our failing wishes
And shredded by the fading hope

Of all the people watching the red sunrise
Drip off the stars
And into their waiting palms,
The beads gliding down
All the life lines of this world
To finally seep into rest
In a cool shady dusk.

Pigments fall from the sky
They swim in our skin

Some would rank them
By that God
But he gave them all to us
By natural superiority
But that makes for inferiority

Oppression violence abuse hate
Always find outlets through these excuses
*** color religion culture
And those that do nothing
Those that see the wrong and still do nothing
Forge the way for wrongdoers
Moderate the righteously inflamed
And accept the abuse

When rights are stolen
Injustice runs unchecked
All will suffer.

In the end remains just the question
What's next?
When will you be the victim?
When will you act?
When will your sense of justice

Cry out for rightful compensation
For rightful equality and freedom?

When will you scream and fall?
For you and others
With you and others

And right the wrongs
And take up that torch of liberty?

As others before you
That you have mocked
And called impatient rabblerousers
And ridiculed their cause

Now just as noble as yours.

You better start moving on
You better stop getting involved
You better party while they die

You gotta stop
You needa rest
Look at the mirror
And change the world

Starting with you.

Gotta get back, back
to that? Well I've been there
Let's move forward.
Don't look down,
That bubble will pop
And down oh down you'll go.

Oop! Too late, that slide starts,
****** back into that styrofoam cup
Drowning again in that syrup
Stinging again by that needle.

Sweet, sticky, nauseous
Oh God help he's gone

YOU TRICKED US ALL

And there it goes laughing
At the shards of our tears
And the glint of those ****** streams.

Well I gotta get this down
I don't know what to write

I can't find the right words
For the throbbing inside

And it hurts that much more
As it festers, trapped.

He spent the hours
He shed his - and others' - blood
He broke bones
He threw kicks
He received beats

And he felt them through the pulse
Of the music
The words exploded
They raked at his insides
And ripped their way out

Looking in the mirror
He finally saw that soul -
Was it his? -  That air bubble popped
And - finally - then came the upward lift

Alone but sailing
The taint slowly
Peeled back
One day at a time
He got back that suffering
He made it into songs

He changed lives
Starting with his own

And then fell back.

Time to return the favor,
They understand more than anyone
Your words still have meaning
Your message is still heard

To err is human, and
Forgiveness divine,
Forgive yourself.
We have forgiven you.

Sweet revenge
To have tasted you
And then your bitter -
Nay, poisonous -
Aftertaste

I don't need to.
I know what that feels like.

Nice for a second, gone for a century,
Scarred for an age.