The Politics Of Damage

To stand begotten
Anointed, adored and beheld,
You'll suffer madness
And walk through every lethal hell
To touch the face of disgrace and ruin,
To fall unnoticed
An unremarked and forgotten empty shell
Scarred by the arrows
Stabbing the targets you have painted on yourself
All to feel the touch of the pain drawn to it ;

How many pieces have you got left to sell
And who's left to pay your price,
So many lies and promises left to tell,
While you still deny your cancer
The diseased half answers
You're so use to crying and ever so dying
You're still always trying
To look so innocent as you ? yourself ;

Welcome back to the world where reality burns,
The line forms to the left
Where every shadow waits to take their turn,
Such easy prey does a lonely heart make
A lesson you've never wanted to learn,
Does it really feel so much better
Once you've redefined the meaning of hurt,
So lost in your labyrinth of regret
How this path of thorns can ravage,
Reflecting every smile with a grimace of death
Behind the beautiful masks of a savage ,
There's no profit in giving any more than you'll ever get
That's the politics of damage ;

Lay on the bottom
Of the bottle where you drown,
Push the poison
Into the veins of fear and doubt,
Anesthetize the lies and alibis they have spoken,
Stumble through the alleys
In the immaculate garbage you lay down,
Nobody's watching
No one can hear quiet tears hit the ground,
Exorcise the promises and dreams they have broken ;

So many mistakes that know your name
And whisper your secrets,
So many lines across your face
Trace a path to the box where you keep your grief
And abscessed infinite regress
Where you once smiled with future denial
That you could ever stand the tests and trials
The days would erase with more and more of the same ;

Welcome back to the world where reality burns,
The line forms to the left
Where every shadow waits to take their turn,
Such easy prey does a lonely heart make
A lesson you've never wanted to learn,
Does it really feel so much better
Once you've redefined the meaning of hurt,
So lost in your labyrinth of regret
How this path of thorns can ravage,
Reflecting every smile with a grimace of death
Behind the beautiful masks of a savage ,
There's no profit in giving any more than you'll ever get
That's the politics of damage ;

You could walk if you tried not to crawl
You could stand if you ignored the floor
You could see if you forgot all you saw
You could fly if you'd unlock the door,
If you could conceive in some way to believe
That time could retrieve
And unbleed even the most broken wings ;

You just can't negotiate all the pain away,
You could try to pick up the pieces before it's too late,
In the broken glass of that mirror hides the hand of fate
Every shard a reflection of every soul you've betrayed,
You're not staring into the eyes of somebody else,
Deep in the iris burns the flame of a familiar hell,
Look closer at the images
Of all the yesterday's you were dealt,
You can't run, you can't hide
All alone to deny
Surrounded by the design
Of your own well rehearsed demise
In the accusing eyes of a thousand pictures of yourself ;

Welcome back to a world come to burn you down,
A chorus to serenade
Where the shadows wait to anoint your crown,
Such easy prey your bitter heart made
A lesson you have finally learned,
It never made it feel any better
Because no matter your perspective it still hurts,
Forever lost in the valley of regret
A path of thorns that tore and ravaged,
No civilized smile of compromise
Could ever make a wise deal with a life so savage,
There's no point in asking for more than they would ever give
A poor underrated overcompensating
Self-destructive broken and jaded
Self identified and labeled ? ,
And that's...
Just the politics of damage