The world is cruel and sinful
Full of sinners condemning sinners
For sinning differently.

Lamentations and a trigger
Questions and closed walls
Loneliness is a dark place to be
When you're a riptide in the sea

We are the hunters and the terror
And we give ourselves away
To every strobe that once brought euphoria
Cascade into the darkness of the day

At gunpoint no lies survive
As they walk the weary wastelands
As you think dog days are over
Knives find peace in hollow hearts

Darts and an anchor
Death by December
Sealed with a kiss and
Promise to deliver
Roses thriving on the remains of the night
Trampled by a stampede of prides
Crags that congregate for catharsis
Fossilised into the ground

Dusk and dawn
Dust and pawns
Lust and taunts
And we give ourselves away

One December morning I found my feet in the deep water
After a storm
As I brewed and brewed trouble
In the form of marble shards
In the innards of a porcelain cup
The holy grail of languor
Skin meets teeth
Placidity greets
Habits die hard
Victims live vicariously
Through rose-tinted glasses
Waiting to be saved
Sinners can't be brave
Like broken ocean waves

The darkest days are over
So rejoice
For the worst is yet to come
But there is silence
Silence in our downfall

Even with nine suns arising
Caressing the canvas that shrouds the clouds
Even as the firmaments fade to black
Sinners can't be brave
Sinners can't be brave
And we need someone to save us all

Save me
Here I lie beneath the rubble
With my mind in a mess
And my heart in a storm
Save me
Before I become brave again

Laughing with the sinners;
Crying with the saints.
Everybody makes me out to be something I ain't.
Expectations imposed; lofty goals set in place.
No-one ever sees a frown on my face.
Too nice to say no, too self-conscience to answer why
I always have that blank look in my eyes.
Shake it off with a smile,
Make sure no-one's concerned.
Have to bear alone the burden which I've learned.
Easy to see, but hard to tell,
My world's in a hand-basket headed for hell.
Crying with the sinners;
Crying with the saints.
I guess we're all something we ain't.

I believe in the match, white phosphorus,
scratch of Bic lighter spurting like a miniature sun
in the deadpan havoc of the darkest night.

I believe in the neon sign, blare of argon
red like lava. The invitation to come inside a place
where everyone is a saint in rehabilitation.

I do not believe in a steeple. I do have a church:
it is full of cripples carrying their hearts like a crutch.
It is full of ***** fingernails, swollen thumbs,

epileptic prayer circles, a choir of bums, riff-raff,
pulled off the street into the warmth of this fiery song.
We are all martyrs burning, like pyres, exploding

in moments of sorrow like gunpowder. God is not
in this church. We are too far from his icy heaven to hear
the cold menace of his manic threats. We are aflame,

making heaven out of the hells we were born into,
the ones we had no choice but to carry like a deformation,
but making our heavens the kind where work is.

We have built heaven out of pillars of words. We
have scorched even the newest of testaments, sifting
through its ash to divine new meaning of resurrection.

I do not believe heaven or hell are nouns. I do not
believe they are adjectives. They are verbs! ******* it
they are verbs: boiling or churning with photographs

of every failure, every success, every bruised knee,
every severed tie, every father that did not love us,
every mother who could not save us, every lover who

kissed the dark sides of our light hearts. I believe
you make heaven, that you make hell. I believe in
only the fire, crackling like skin molting from sunburn.

I want only to be consumed. The world is too far ruined
to douse this from me. Let me burn. If you look closely,
there are doves in the smoke, my bones glowing branches.

Come, come
To the gathering of winners
The one the world sees as sinners

Come, come
To the meeting of the living
Who love our God yet keep on sinning

Come, come
To the love of our Lord
Who across seas and skies had soared

Come, come
To the love of our father
Who's undying grace will always go farther

Come, come
Ye sinners and saints
You beautiful, broken, and you with stains

Come, come
To the Lord Jesus Christ
For He will always win the fight

"Come, come,
Lord Jesus" we cry
One day, He will, one day, we'll fly

"Come, come"
Say the saints to the dead
"The banquet is soon, and the  prince shall be wed!"

Come, come
My Christ and my king
I want with you forever to sing

Come, come
And your chariots bring
For we shall be ready, we shall, my king.

Come, come
To the gathering of winners
Though we be victorious, we are still sinners

Come, come
Oh come to the feast
Where we shall eat plenty and hear the great priest.

The Lord Jesus
Ate with us sinners
And took off our rags and made us the winners.

So come, come
To the table of winners
Who through the world's eyes may still be sinners

But come, come
For in the eyes of Jesus
We are no sinners-as jewels He sees us.

Sleeplessness is a lonely kingdom.

I could promise myself discipline with the daylight,
but what if I told you that I lied under the moonlight?
Sinners never sleep,
sinners never sleep.

They lie awake and talk
with the wings of Gabriel.
They don't shut their eyes;
there are stories in the picture houses of their own.
Of lie and deciet.
And guilt and anguish.

They'll never sleep.

They'll howl with the night
and forget why they were meant
to darken their hearts to match the sky.

They'll never glow. They'll never beat.
I'll never sleep. I'll never sleep again.