The exalt is ephemeral, sure to fade
Wistful stares dance past tainted shades
Rose colored lenses seep into red eyes
Chest filled with knots but can't form the ties

Nebulous mirror is all that is seen
Want to break through but don't want to bleed
Certainty fueled solely by liquid coal
Envy consumes and tears into the soul

Tell me I'm beautiful, loosen my chains
Assent the lies and then turn off my brain
Choked from the view by a chemical wall,
Lust for that side but don't want it at all

Desist the leers of superior ones,
Desire escape and somewhere to run
Pray that there is no re-occurrence,
Return to me addictive reassurance.

There is stillness immersed in movement.  
Branches that wave in the wind on a rooted tree
Passing clouds over the hushed sky
I search for that stillness inside,
But it seems the closer I look the less I am.
I can't find the permanence in identity
Can't find stability in me.

Innocence scrawled on a blindfold,
"Unfair" whispered from within.
Two subjective perceptions of the objective;
Two dreams disguised as reality.
Eyes glazed over with self assurance
you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.
and now I'm sorry.
Excuses emerge from hidden willful blindness,
Searching for the core - where misunderstanding sits;
Two mouths moving, saying nothing.
Four eyes staring at the same painting, seeing different things.
Two hearts so submerged in cement that they've forgotten to beat.

The poisonous fog clears and drips onto our worlds melting all that we've built, but instead of taking everything, it's waken us up.

The surrounding tunnel gnaws at my eyes
The sliver of light progressively smaller
Progressively dim
I lose my way in the labyrinth of a straight path
Blinded by an unadorned world,
There's no up down sideways or backwards there just is.
Pushed along by gentle metallic hands that scream lullabies at me
Deafening my thoughts
Murdering them with distractions,
Disguising nothingness with false purpose.
I've lost the ability to move my own feet, I don't belong to me
I'm just riding through the tunnel
I am no longer sure that there was ever an exit,
The light at the end has gone out.
They've turned it off.

You're a canvas smothered in fragmented glass
Mirror of beauty,
Aesthetics of God.
You're a plastic portal to the Ideal form,
Propped up on a cliff,
It leads to a brick wall.

Try to delve into yourself
Obsessed with the shining garbage on the outside
But it doesn't exist
It's just a painting.

You slice your hands as you attempt to claw your way inside
Blood dripping and staining and real,
It doesn't exist
You're just a painting

Painted by you,
Painted by them,
Painted by us.

Work of art
never be mine,
you don’t have a heart and I don’t have the time.
Inside of my mind is where I’d turn to,
but you've devoured it.
Drift back to me and I’ll crawl back to you.
False notes wisp past blades, it’s nothing new
The sky turns red but we’ll still call it blue.