House On No Street

In the hell of the earth
Where no man dare go
There stands a house
That only death knows
It's fleeting in form
Withered in shape
And once the door opens
You'll never escape
The windows bleed black
So no one can see in
And peer into the torture
That this house represents

If you've only heard stories
Then consider yourself blessed
Because my tale is like kin
To a novel of death
Skin off the bones
And blood in the raw
Death speaking softly
With a long southern drawl

Now I regret the day
That I stepped foot in
Once the door shuts
There's no happiness again
Your pain can't compare
To what lies inside
You all bleed but know not
What it feels like to die

Hollow of all feeling
Void of all love
Stripped of your soul
Dragged through the mud
No shadow, no reflection
Just darkness in black walls
The stench of destruction
And blood in the halls

So keep your distance
Or end up like me
Dead and alone
In the house on no street

Escaping Hunterville

"It was terribly warm for that time of year...
          A humid October air stuck to my skin, leaving my clothes glued to my body, wet from the sweat and humidity. I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I looked on into the sunset, the only thing I could come to find beautiful at the time. For 10 years I sat on the steps of our house on Beachwood Street, and for 10 years I wanted to leave.                                                
          Don't get me wrong, I loved the neighborhood, all of our neighbors couldn't be any nicer to me; but it's not the surroundings that plagued me, it's what was going on right there in my own house.
          For 10 goddamned years the screaming, the yelling, the atmosphere itself had been the reason I spent my nights alone sitting right there on those steps. Sometimes I didn't even go inside to sleep at night, I'd just curl up on the bench on our porch and drift into a worried sleep. I always found myself hoping that the next day would be different, but it never was. Luckily, I had my school to escape from that hell, but it's always there leering in the back of my mind. When I got home, I'd spend my time outside with my guitar, pouring into it the emotions that I could confide in no one else...
          She'd call me in for dinner, and that's when it usually began...something didn't taste good, or dinner wasn't on time, or the house was dirty...something always pushed him over the edge. I'd absorb myself into my food, staring at it like it was mesmerizing me. But in the background, it was there. I tried so intently to block out the sound of his fist landing on her face; her hands pummeling him as fierce as they could. But it was no use…
          I'd finish my food as quickly as possible, and then slowly slip outside to just get away. In a few hours, the cries would die down, but I refused to go inside. I still remember the day I finally decided I hated both of them, and I despised even living with them. Even their hugs in the morning before I went off to school disgusted me. I didn't want them touching me with the same hands they used in anger the night before.
          Then came the night that it was somehow different, the screaming was worse, the blows rained down faster and harder than ever before. Oh God, then the gunshots…
          I knew what had happened; I just dropped my head into my hands and began to cry…
          The neighbors obviously heard what had gone on, because the next thing I knew, the lady next door was shaking me, asking me if I was okay. But I didn't answer her, I knew they were both dead. All I could do was cry…that's all I wanted to do…"
          I turned and look into the eyes of my wife, they were covered in tears; and I pulled her close to me, and kiss her forehead, and said "It's okay…I have you now, and you are all I could ever need…I love you." I returned my gaze to that house that tortured me 8 years ago. I watched as the wrecking ball smashed through the roof, then through the walls. I felt myself let out a little smile as it suddenly collapsed. I heard my wife whisper into my ear "I love you", and I turned and hugged her tightly, then said
          "Let's get outta here…"
          We took one last look at the now pile of rubble that used to be that fucking house. Then, we walked away, to never return again…

Ghost Never Die

The Ghost Of Epic Heroes (Put Myself To Rest)

Well here I go again, and my screams

They just sound like TV static

The absence and void of being

The descent of fatal flaw...

O' heart, you've never felt so deadly...

I draw back with all my might...

But yet my sword draws no blood

Yet my blade brings no scar

How do I fight when I'm useless

A beggar in warrior skin...

Strung up from gallows I helped construct...

Call me a thief

Call me a liar

Use the only words you know

Force-feed me your diet

Of broken promises

Your poison soup

For my tortured soul...

O' heart, you've never failed me so...

Rain down, and flash black, so none but us can see

The Ghost Of Those In Panic (Forest Of Sleeping Giants)

I'm wide awake watching

This whole world sleeping in...

What do I do?

How do I warn them,

If we follow the path of these ways

Then there's no way we can ever leave this hell

Am I the only one here,

Who sees the tragedy,

That we are about to unfold?

So keep the door shut

Open the window instead

And crawl out to the back alley

Before someone finds us dead...

And we are all just messengers

With a warning that we share

First we must realize our position

Before we take on the burden we bear

Scream at the top of your lungs

"Those who are now sleeping,

Everybody, Please wake up!"

The Ghost Of Painful Memories (A House Under Dreary Skies)

There is no home here now

Just a building that I can see

The grass has died and faded

And the walls are cracked and worn

The photos that once hung on the wall

Have now crashed to the floor

There's no home here now

There's no place to lay my head

The silence feels so hollow

Like emptiness and death

This is not the place I learned to

Walk, and talk, and live

It seems like a ghost of

A past that never happened...

I can forget the screams

I've learned how to forgive

But as I look around, I can tell

There is no home here now,

And this is no place I want to live...

Throne To Dogs

Well tell the wolves and their kings to stop howling
I'm just trying to get some sleep on this most solemn of nights
Laying down my armor at the foot of my bed
I never wear want to be the killer again.
No, I never want to see that side of things.

Forty long years.
Dragging my sword through the mud and muck
Forty long years
Just trying to keep myself clean from the blood

And I'll be damned if I'll be a warrior again the next time they beckon.
Because I've had my fair share of close calls and I think it's time to close the book.
Tomorrow I will burn these things, and you'll never see me kill again.

I'm done
Forty long years
Dragging their bodies through the dirt and dust
Forty long years
I'll be lucky just to see the kids of my kids.

Soldier,
No longer.
Have the old me thrown to the dogs to devour whole before he rises from slumber
Warrior,
No more.
I fought your wars for forty years and now I am through.

I Don't Wanna Stop...

Everyone knows Dylan Thomas,
And everyone watched the Dangerous Minds
And we all know that he said "Rage, against the dying of the light"

Maybe my light's dying,
The me I used to be is becoming a little bit dimmer,
So I've got to learn to rage against the dying of myself
To beat against the walls of this concrete hell and yell
"I am not a prisoner or a victim!"

Because if anyone's to blame for why I feel insane, I am.
And if I could ever set foot on the doorstep of the grandfather that took my childhood
I would just to throw hate into his face, and that would just feed the ugliness of his soul.

So I'll rage against the dying of myself, throw my hands up to the clouds and exclaim
"I am a free spirit, and I dare you to fuck with me!"
Because I spent years in a jail cell of my own making
On a floor caked with blood and skin of my own taking.

All I want to do is spill ink onto page and make it turn into a poem
Spill paint onto canvas and call it a masterpiece,
I want to be so much more than I allow myself to be.
I want to be a crutch and a healer to those who love me.
I want to...

So I rage against the dying of myself, because I am a light that won't ever extinguish
Even when I'm gone you'll all remember me.
Because I want to leave an impact that would make oceans turn red
A footprint in the sad that would make god himself blush.

I want to be more than mankind...

So I'll rage against the dying
of myself...

When The Marauder's Wife Sings Back To Me

Oh sweet stranger, how I have lied to you
Fooled you with my beauty, but surely you knew
That I'm just a collector of hearts and now,
Yours will placed on my shelf

You'll find me a false skeleton of the princess you're seeking
The skin a pigmented glimpse of the touch that you yearn for.

My truth would scar the sun and I'm not in the business of being in love with you.
I'm just the flicker of the eyelash that graces your cheek when the butterflies kiss you to sleep.
I never said I was a saint, you just saw me that way.
I played innocent while you played the fool,
Now look what I've done to you.

Oh sweet stranger, how I've lied to you.
I'm merely a ghost that will vanish as soon as you open your eyes.

--------------------------------

No beautiful, I don't believe, there's no way that this can be true.
I've sung you my songs til I'm blue in the face, and now tell me what shall I do.
Shall I sail the seas just looking for another girl of your poise & beauty.

No, no, I shall keep trying.
I won't give up until you love me.

I'm not like the others who you have laid with on your bed.
I much more than a mere man who has visions of you in his head.
I can kiss your lips, and I can make you feel.
You're not a ghost, you're my angel
Why can't you believe this is real.

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Wake up from slumber you pitiful fool.
I'm no longer here to amuse you,
I've had my fun, and I'll slip away.
I have no other use for you.

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How could you do this to me.
All the things that I've sacrificed

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I didn't ask you to love me,
I just wanted your love that night.

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Oh, what shall they say when I tell them my story.
How I and the marauder's wife had a love that they could not touch.
And of how she tore my heart away, and ground into the dust.
Her kiss, her gentle hands so beautiful when they hugged me.
But now I shall sit here and cry, over you my lovely.

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Don't you waste your tears on my me, I'm not worth the effort.

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You don't know me, and you never will.
I swam the oceans and braved the storms to sing my songs at your will.

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I never asked you to sing to me.
I've enjoyed you long enough, now it's time for me to set you free.

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I can not turn back now, she's all but closed the door.
Will I ever get over this pain that fills me?
Will I ever want to love again.
Perhaps I feel too anxiously.
Should I ever fall again?

Filling A Book With The Things I Don't Know...

Can I...
No wait a second
Erase that from your memory
Maybe the better question is

Will I?

Will I ever be the person that envisioned I could be.
Is that person inside of me and will they ever be let out?

Did you know that speed of light is...
Me neither.

Because I could fill a book with the things that I don't know.
Hell, I could probably make it an encyclopedia.
Because I haven't gone
From Rome to whatever I would be if I went around the world and ended right next to Rome.
See, because I have NO idea what city is next to Rome.

So surely I can't say I've lived, but I can say that I have LIVED.
Because I've done plenty of things, and I've been beat against walls
And I've been thrown across the room, and I've felt the kiss of a lover.
And I've been down, and I've been happy.
And there's no way, I'd ever give it back.

In the grand scheme of everything there is, I don't know much.
But I CAN fill a book with the things that I know.
And goddamit I plan to.
Because I want you all to know that I have been alive
And I have been in love.
And I've seen things that are wonderful to tell.
But then I've seen things that make me want to cry
And I'll cry
Because I'm not afraid to cry anymore
And I don't wanna hide anymore.
So I won't.

By the time I am done
You'll know me....