This silence between us,
broken by the sound
of the rain on the rooftops.

This aching in my bones,
like they’re splintering under the weight
of this collapse.

The sun
doesn’t warm my skin like it should; nothing is left to fill this void.
It’s a new dawn.

Echoes
of tired footsteps through a desolate, empty town
reverberating off concrete walls and asphalt
but somehow never make a sound.

Ruminate
on this discord, the situation that we’re in - an impasse and it's a disposition that’s wearing thin.

Go there for your rota
There for your orders
Fill up the quotas
We'll bill for you quarters
Report to your foreman
But watch for construction
Cause if you get hurt you've damaged our property

Did you not read the Company policy?
That defines you as the Company's property
That waivers your say in autonomy
The conglomerates got you in lock and key
We put the dollar back into idolatry
If you're upset you can rent an apology
We're a family forged in bureaucracy
No I in "team" but there's "con" in economy

Were you expecting rights?
Were you hoping for fairness?
My friend you're indentured and pleasure's exempt from your tenure so venture back down to your slum
That's provided at generous prices
Your worth is determined by your sacrifices

A small term of service when down of the surface
Interment's a freebie that comes with the purchase

We work
To earn the right to work
To earn the right to give
Ourselves the right to buy
Ourselves the right to live
To earn the right to die

Burn the books!
Cover them in kerosene!
Destroy the present and all that's been!
No more ideas should exist
If someone objects; cut their wrists

The word is our's
Reality is made by us
No more books allowed
They cause a lot of fuss!

Ignorance is bliss
Books bring back hate
Knowledge is nothing
But misery's bait.

Your thoughts are our's,
Your mind's not yours,
We have an eye in all the doors,
So why hide in despair,
Just give us your books,

We will bring you happiness,
We'll help you love this place,
If you refuse however,
Your ashes will fly in space.

I saw you shivering in cold
In that narrow corner of the world
Your lips were blue as death and your voice was like a sad chord
You were the saddest ******* earth and I wasn't the happiest
We met that night for a reason
It was the last day of the season
That's how we started our spring
From the darkest hour of a winter
On your finger I put a golden ring
It's our little tale
That's how in love we fell.

Blurred shapes, Blurred lines
Rusted cars and overdue fines,
Empty roads, Empty halls
Phone bills and noone calls,
Untrimmed hedges and broken ledges.

An Echo talks and an Echo replies
Rainstorms and blue skies
Funny how much time flies

Watching the world burn
I pause motionless for a moment and their heads turn
Who can remain still in this trembling state
Locked into to the grip of deaths embrace
I looked out into eternity and saw no hope
Yet I felt no fear, I held no dreams in my hands
Not a single spark of faith in my mind
Yet the days goes by with a tasteless pain
A senseless thought of what could be
I want to live my fantasies, just like you
But I'm sitting here watching the world burn
Motionless for a moment and I can't care
Caring is painful and my heart can't be breaking always
Fiery flickers of love rip apart my despair
Leaving me burnt and turned to unfathomable misery
All because I saw that our heaven was built on hell
Our worthless wealth, made in China
This disposable planet, soaked in petroleum filth
Could you look them in the eye for a minute
Only to feel the dystopian horror that you call beauty
Trying so hard to express this perspective
Living alone in this lamentable lethargy
If I said nothing, who would rise to break the silence?
Efuse apart from our celebratory mania
Refuse to remain in a myopic mesmerization
A hopeless hypnosis of comfortable mass hysteria
How do you call me confused, when you are conscious?
And if you are merely amused, ponder this poetry
Pity this passing plea for empathy

I:
I stopped for breath;
It was earthy, the soil
Was putrid to the touch:
Death oozed out of the cracks
Of the river, bubbling unnaturally.
Life was naught where I roamed.
Squeezing the last drops out of the bottle,
My cracked lips groaned, the silence strangled my memory
Only the weak were erased that day.
Four years ago I think
She ruled herself with a spring in her step
Before the sludge, the acid sludge
Wiped her dreams away
And ushered in the sun of winter
To never see summer again.

II:
Speckled with dust I carried onward;
The terrain flashed with familiarity
As I stepped into the darkness of her home
If you can even call it that anymore;
Her smile is a deep crimson, the blood of the many
Line her barren wasteland. Sometimes I face the winds
Instead of hiding; but they bring those hollow, pale spirits
Ever closer. They only stop
To torment; their whispers perfectly pierce
And destroy the hope I once had.

III:
They tell me sweet nothings and extend their hands of absence;
I cower in the darkness to stop their screams.
The scimitar of radiant light cuts through the night
As I prepare to face the wasteland again.

Swallows, sloes and willows; gone are the days where
They lined the earth and made it smell whole again.
Now we lay motionless in dreams long lost
Lonesome as I was, the ghosts haunt where I once were.

IIII:
The path in front of me winds endlessly;
Shattered and incomplete, it beckons me
To wherever it decides to take me.
For I am naught in the wasteland;
I will wait for her to come back
But the sands of time are not on my side.

Love and confusion confounding the illusion of trust in a systematic regime which they deny ever existed but constantly promise to improve upon. The hat's shape and color may change, but our inability to exchange their deranged platforms for a stabler form of expression exposes our disillusion with dispossession and our embracing being complacent in the face of our rulers' all-encompassing corruption.