Year of the Creature Inside Us All

Curled up inside my mind

They scratch away.

The dark, the dark

They love the dark

It keeps them warm

Living in more than a fool's paradise

They pace the halls

Of men, great and small

Haunting the hallow walls

And staircases of the heart.

You hear their footsteps

And their breathing tightens something in your throat.

Black.

Eyes shut to block these things out

Or keep them locked out of the world

That is hardly any safer.

The phantasm floats about

Down city streets

Not just in your mind

And the minds of the good

It's time to take a flashlight

And a bat

to these ghosts and monsters

That are within us all

It's Time to Deal With Yourself and Your Past

Walk Which Way

I can't do this

Not anymore

I've stayed strong, I've walked on

As long as I could

But in the next 72 hours

There will be a fork in the road

And I'll have to choose the way

That I want to go

I can fly through the skies

And see the world I don't know

And learn, and wonder, and question

As I go

Or I could get out

Just relocate

Settle down in my own place

Likely I'll decorate

Or I can search high and low

And send out my name

And hope that my schooling

Is what someone will be willing to pay

Yet all of the paths point to me

by myself

No one helping, along for the ride

Just me

And That Scares Me A Little

Anger and a Bag of Chips

Angry.

So, so angry.

This feeling in the pit

of my stomach eating me alive.

This was you!

How could you make me feel this way

How... How?

Pitiful me.

The cards were always in your hands

And the dice were heavy on that side

You played it so well

I never heard them say 'check'

It's plastered all over the world

What we are not

And you are now

Without me and with her

Don't think I don't know

Because it's reflected in your eyes

And that, my dear,

was your one mistake.

This anger will be gone before long

As will this pitiful trace

I don't need cards to tell me that

and you're nothing to me.

Ciao.

Cutting Rope

I said I'd never let you go, and I never did.

There were so many times

When I wanted to.

When I could have.

Maybe I should have.

So many people telling me it was okay,

It is part of life,

You have to do it to move on,

You only are hurting yourself

It hurt so bad to keep holding

On to something I couldn't see to the bottom of.

But it would have hurt worse

If I let go.

I don't regret my choice

I don't think it was wrong

In the long run of things

I'm finally content.

cutting your rope would have meant cutting mine too

Oh No. I Taste the Hate.

Music

is a universal language

Shared by you and me 

and everyone

We hear it in our minds

We feel it in our bones

We say it with our lips

We understand it with our hearts

So why is there so much hate

When it moves everyone differently?

When it brings you to tears

And I am left unimpressed

But hear: 

Do not bash the rap because they say whats on their minds

Do not diss the hip-hop soul; they feel it in their bones

Do not hate the rock and roll for playing loud and proud and unashamed

Do not shun the metal gods for being extremely brave

Do not dislike the classical for keeping with the laws

Do not scorn the electronic and the synth for doing something different

Do not despise the country for staying loyal to their roots

Do not trash the pop contemporary for singing what we all know and are

Do not mock the indie or the alternative or the punk or the gothic

Because they all give us something different.

Instead quiet those who

Will rudely and silently jeer at those who actually have talent

And ask them why they are not

on the stage performing.

It's all right not to like certain things but don't force the hate on others

They Break, They Make, They Hold

I will be okay

I hope my voice does not tell you otherwise

These shaking hands of mine

will stay by my side.

I will not force

anything upon you, it's not me

These shaking hands of mine

will not drag you away.

I want to tell you

that those three words are all for you

These shaking hands of mine

will do near anything for you.

Will you take my hand?

Hey! I'm with the band.

Here i am

Stepping out of this fear

Out of this darkness

Into the pounding sway of something...

A song.

I move along

My hands keeping the melody

Across the plain

The beat moves my feet in time

The bass keeps me swaying

I want to act crazy

I want to have fun

The snare like lightning

Cuts into the consistent pounding

The crashing

Making me keep time

Oh! Melodious words

Translate into the hearts of the people

This is why I'm here

I'll help you along.

A final show of what we can do

This is the final note

Gone after this

But forever a song

We are all different. We all contribute something. We are one in this song.