Although you gave me back my heart,
you might have kept a piece of it.
It must be close to death by now,
but it's not quite there -- it's still quite fit.

Fit enough to race and hurt
when the past decides to haunt my dreams.
Fit enough to splatter with red
all my yellows, blues, and greens.

An iron hand has gripped my heart;
now sluggish is the blood
that travels slowly in my veins,
like a lifeless flood.

An iron hand has gripped my days,
and now they're tired and slow.
I don't know what to do with them --
they slowly come and go.

I walk a land of hungry men,
with empty hearts and eyes devoid
of dreams and hope and all that's merry,
of life's twinkle they cannot carry.

They look at me with lifeless eyes
and sigh a little at what they see:
dreams and hope and all that's merry
and life's twinkle they cannot carry.

They ask me for a little piece
of what they think my eyes carry.
They beg me to infuse their hearts
with dreams and hope and all that's merry.

And I, in all my helplessness,
cannot help but stare at them
and sigh a little at what I see
and give my heart another mend --
then turn it back towards my friend.

Sometimes, during a leisurely night
Or a busy moment's fleeting flight
A dying pain in its agony
Briefly burns ever so bright
And seduces the heart with its pale flame
Down the thorny memory lane
At the end of which its body lies
Whose weakened pulse refuses to die
But time's haze has filled the lane
Whose length has numbed the dying flame --
The heart immediately retreats
Towards the gentle morning sun,
The fleeting moment's ending run
Until the next reverie,
When the night and day again conspire
To lead the heart back to the fire.

For a dream-like day in a dream-like week
let me retire from the soul-consuming fire
that burns inside my heart and through my days,
eating the latter and the former's former ways.

The heart forgets, the mind does not
so it draws from itself an unkind night
which sets arrows drawn from quivers of Past
upon their self-harming, heart-bound flights.

I've murdered, I've looted, there are men I've slain
or is it a heart where my dagger had landed?
I think it's the heart where my dagger had landed
Whose grip on my skin all these crimes have branded.