LYRIC: The Things We Do To Pay The Bills

I exist behind a guise

Crushed beneath professional hair

Cannot breathe inside this suit

The one I swore I’d never wear

They were the worst days of my life

Yet I’m back inside in that cell

The one I thought I had escaped

The one that I always called hell

The things we do to pay the bills

Can make us strangers to ourselves

If only I could see me now

But I have become someone else

In my bathroom there’s a mirror

But staring back at me

Unrecognizable reflection

Pseudo identity

I plaster on my daily smile

The one the world expects

I turn away and close the door

My tie a noose around my neck

I hear the words fall from my throat

Saying things I don’t believe

Same old stories I was told

The ones from which I had been freed

Until I had masters to please

Bosses I’m forced to obey

The evil’s always so banal

When normalised as just another day

The things we do to pay the bills

Would make our younger selves blush red

If only I could see me now

But the me I was is dead

In my bathroom there’s a mirror

But staring back at me

Unrecognizable reflection

Pseudo identity

I plaster on my daily smile

The one the world expects

I turn away and close the door

My tie a noose around my neck

Life – 

binding me, 

hiding me, 

holding me prisoner, 

entwining me

Now I need, 

to break free, 

now I need to begin finding me

Finding me

LYRIC: To All My Almost Friends

It’s hard to find others

When you keep losing yourself

But harder to lose them

Because they wanted someone else

Think you’ve found a home

But it’s just foster care again

A temporary reprieve 

Until you’re out the door again

I don’t mean to be so difficult

But I will always speak my mind

The ones who like what they hear

Are the ones I need to find

Each time I’ve found my tribe

All too soon I don’t belong

Think that I’ve found my people

But soon find out I was wrong

Each time that I’m welcomed

I’m too soon shown to the door

I show the world who I am

It never asks for an encore

I don’t mean to be so difficult…

I light my beacon, hopeful

It will attract like-minded light

The beacon’s glow starts to smoulder…

Fades, unseen, into the night

I shout these words out in rhythm

Write down who I am in rhyme

My voice is a constant prayer

In a world with no divine

I don’t mean to be so difficult…

But I’m not changing for acceptance

Because those who get it, get it

And those who don’t…

…Were never worth the time

LYRIC: Searching For That Scene

I’m still searching for the scene

Dreamed of in the suburbs

Listening to records of a past already dead

Because where do you go when you want to be you

But you want to be you in a place which no longer exists?

I’m still searching for that scene

We dined on leftovers long out of date, hoping

the next meal would bring nourishment not more empty stomachs

But there’s only so many disappointing rooms taunting

Before you realise this is all you are gonna get

I’m still searching for that scene

Sending out messages in cut and paste, 

With a self-addressed 

Envelope 

To rusting PO Boxes only answered 

By the heroes we were told to never meet

Ahead of our time, we lived in the past

Unable to bridge the gap between the then and now

We were children hunting down an impossible dream

One from which they can’t seem to shake me quite awake.

I’m still searching for that scene

LYRIC: Bursting From The Grave

Just as fucked up as I ever was

Maybe fucked up a little more

The damage of a life lived wide awake

While other people close their eyes

I cut my hair sometimes to celebrate

To mark another minor liberation

You join the dots of every scar

They come together and they form a mask

That’s far too easy to slip on

I find myself when I refuse

When I raise two middle fingers at the world

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

I find myself in my old notebooks

Which read the same as this one now

And listening back to all those favourite songs

Which never fail to make me feel

The way I felt listening for the first time

I wear myself upon my sleeve

In new tattoos and ancient t-shirts

I am myself when I am ill at ease

Sleepless nights and restless days

I am nothing but my patterns

Childhood traumas locked in amber

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

We can always disappoint 

The person we see standing in the mirror

But we can also make them proud

A lot is lost with every passing year

A thousand cuts of compromise

But they can never take it all away

So hold on tight to what is left

I have never been the person that they thought I was

Some days I am better

Some days I am much worse

But I am always somewhere inside even when I’m lost I’m still there clinging on

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

My nemesis is the unthinking status quo

My secret power is my power to say no

Bursting from the grave

I gasp deep at the fresh air

A zombie roaming empty streets

Finding myself, Piece by piece

Just in time for them 

To bury me alive again

LYRIC: Congratulations

False smile, wide eyes

Dreams dead, lost pride

Chin up, shut down

Lost and not found

And hey, what happened to you today

Hey what happened to you?

Where is the you, the you we used to see?

The one with all the hopes and all the dreams?

The one who said the world was ours to change?

Where is the idealist artistic heart?

The revolution we were charged to start?

Where is the you, the you you used to be?

Earning a living

Worn down, give in

Sold out and employed

Bills paid, but hope void

You got a job

Mortgage, locked in

Own your own prison

Pension, pay cheque

Another lost reject

And hey, what happened to you today?

(You got a job)

Hey what happened to you?