Rose coloured skies to cover the grime oozing over the surface
As yellow paint slicks onto the sea of black tar
A weak barrier against the smog
The trees line the golden ring
The sun has bound around the earth
Until the city skyline glows that irrefutable shade of orange
That chases away the moonlight and the birds and the roses
Leaving behind an outline of skeletal mustiness and misery
A graveyard of ashes rising above
The grey fermented pavement, a canvas of footsteps and broken pieces
Ashes on streets, ashes in lungs
Ashes inside and around and above and below
Death lingers over the cinderblock garden
These buildings are gravestones, the streets run with grey
The cremation of love and lips and lies
This place is a dying forest of falling branches
As a body slumps and falls, another rises through
To push above the skyline of bones
And become part of that rosy heaven above

Every footfall draws another drop of sweat
While each rise of a chest leaves blood running
Down cheeks like the tears of statues
The people don't talk, the birds choke on their melodies
Notes like worms as they force themselves up throats
Puked like stringed sentences of lies and misfortune
Splattering the tarmac like injustice on heartstrings
That have hardened to rods of steel
Indifferent to acidic tears and rose petals
The dust flies like spit
In clouds through the alleyways
Clinging and stinging eyes, ******* shut
Drying loose tongues and filling open mouths
'Till they choke and they have to speak around
Every word they ever wished to speak
You have no safe breaths under this sky
There are no safe words you can ever say
Under the falling roses

You've become a statue
Your eyes don't cry as they used to
This place has changed you, has warped your mind
These streets of everlasting dust
They've stripped you down and built you back
With crumbling bones and brittle skin
And muscles that have been pulled taught
Your face is sallow plastic
Moulded by those you swore to hate
You've become their toy, you're their little project
To twist and try and test
The streets melt beneath your feet
Pavement rippling and scorching
It's poisoning you, toxic and tasteless
These streets of never ending lust
For blood, for bone, for a brittle crown
Of a falling castle, a burning council
The roses are falling rotten
Petals upon the darkening road
The roses are falling rotten
The roses falling from the dust-filled sky