There’s a ringing bouncing against the walls of the cellar of my brain,
Trapped forever where immortality will never permit an escape,
There’s a blind man within me,
Smiling while sighing through a silent movie,
There’s a little deaf girl in my mind,
Curled in a dark room shaking to the thundering bass,
This is the ignorance soaking my brain,
But I find that I am an infant in a pub,
Mother is nothing but a young pup,
But she has a loud bark and knows enough not to bite,
And my father is resting in his bed of dirt,
As he lacked the hero to match his heroine,
There’s a monk at a cocktail party,
Humming chants to himself,
While tracing the split of her skirt to the split in his soul,
There an atheist in a church,
Praying to something big,
For his lover who evaporated with a bang,
And a pacifist who sits in his one bedroom in Compton,
Soaking in the red rain,
And there’s an anarchist preaching on the highway,
Shouting the ways of yin and yang,
But this is not ignorance,
This is the epitome of competence,
The ability to analyze pain,
This is the love and fear in my soul,
A blind man and a deaf girl in my conversing in my brain,
A monk holding the hand of an atheist in my heart that is pumping,
The raging of hope and hatred,
Through my veins

My father had told me
That a man of God shows no weakness
That he bears the shame of his father's
But repents nightly
A man of God
Walks with his head high
And his grandeur low
Because the lord almighty
Takes from those who get cocky
So I grew to walk in his shadow
Willing him to snare me for my sins
And strike me down for my sorrows

But as the congregation hung to my words
Of everlasting love and imminent doom
I only became certain of one of the two
And as the bible unfolded into a loss of proof
My faith diminished and my anger furnished
A thirst for blood, whiskey, and the youth
I had given up
By always trying to do right
By an uncreated being
Who allegedly lived in the sky

Being a man of God had lost it’s power
In my heart
But had kept its weight in their eyes
Questions were never asked
And as a flurry of nameless women
Passed through my room
I wondered if my place
With God was holding my wife back

I wondered if her praying was an act
I wondered if she registered the smell of jack
I wondered if she minded the blue and black
I knew I had

I knew I had

I knew I had

I knew I had cowered at my father’s
Ironclad fist and brimstone eyes
As he sung the melodic justice
Of Romans 2:5
To the beat of my disfigured body
Growing into a discolored
Story of accidental black eyes
But a man of God does not dare cry
And because of my stubbornness and my unrepentant heart
I was storing up wrath against myself for the day of God's wrath
when his righteous judgment would be revealed
And now I dare him to try
As I grab the bottle and flee to the devil's side

I am a man of God
When the pews are full
And the word is by my side
I wonder if I repent enough
With the gun between my eyes
Will I still make it there
Will I even still try
I am a man of God
I will do what’s right
Say I’m sorry to my wife
And tell my mother goodbye
I am a man of God
Whiskey, lighter, Bible
By my side
Just give me chance
To dismiss my congregation
One
Last
Time

Of all of God's children,
He was my favorite,
With the smile of saviors,
The handshake of pastors,
The attention of preachers,
And the prestige of a priest,
But he lived nothing like Christ,

I gave my tribute,
Paying the weekly tithing,
Of a dutiful wife,
By cooking, cleaning, and closing my eyes,
To all the nights of listerine and dilated pupils,
To all the mornings of an array of strange perfumes,
To all the discolored splotches making a vibrant quilt of my skin,
Those were my tithings,

But he must have been in favor with the man up stairs,
Because he strode freely,
A man of god,
Faces no persecution,
For his acts of hate,
But the son of god,
Dies for sharing love,
But no love is shared,
With a minister's wife,

I wept my prayers nightly,
With my knees indented by the carpet,
With my hand clasping my broken wrist,
Dear father who resides in heaven,
Why do you leave me here in hell,
With a man who loves like purgatory,
Why let such a man live,
Who lets your name jungle gym,
Through his vocal chords,
While letting the devil,
Strategically blockade his heart,
God,
Fill this silences,
With verses of hope,
With scriptures of love,
And the holiest revelations before my eyes,
But the only thing revealed,
Was the dismissal,
Of a minister's wife,


When asked why I'm an atheist,
I'll always tell you this,
My faith died with my blindness,
My god died with my marriage,
Now,
Let the minister dismiss his wife,
One
Last
Time