Crucified Lyrics - Rustdawg73

36 songs · Listen to the album · All the lyrics

A Dawg In The Houses of the Holy Crucified

Verse 1

I hit the side door laughing with the dust still on my black boots, cheap smoke in my lungs and a bad moon under my skin
Gold saints stared down from the ceiling while the old boards held their breath and the choir kept polishing up its grin
I was raised where the porch light dies and mercy gets sold for rent, where boys learn fast how hunger barks through bone
Now I’m stalking through the incense, nosing out the rot in the rafters, hearing polished prayers drip ice from a borrowed throne

Verse 2

They said wipe your feet, shut your mouth, leave your dirt out on the steps, keep your past locked down deep in the yard
My past walked right beside me, mean and breathing, dragging chains of busted summer nights and county road scars
I saw rich hands folded clean while poor backs bent in the shadows, I saw grief dressed up and marched between the pews
I heard guilt poured like wine from silver cups to shaking lips, heard fear dressed high and sold around as truth

Pre-Chorus

If holiness wants a leash on my throat, let it break
If grace needs crawling, I’d rather stand up wild and awake

Chorus

I’m a dawg in the houses of the holy, muddy paws on polished stone
I’m a growl where they wanted whisper, I’m a scar where they wanted bone-white tone
Let the organ choke on smoke, let the stained glass rattle in its frame
I didn’t come for pardon, I came to make that cold air answer and to level blame

Verse 3

There was a girl in the back row staring like a blade in a flood, jaw locked tight on years she never said
A boy tried singing through a tremble while his father wore a Sunday smile sharp enough to leave him red
An old man bent like winter held his hat against his chest, smaller than the debt they preached was his from birth
That room was full of human thunder getting told their ache was proof they ought to kiss the floor and thank the earth

Verse 4

Then I climbed those steps unasked, heartbeat kicking like a floor tom, every eye snapping hard against my hide
I said your god ain’t deaf, your walls are, your mercy limps when power grips the book and calls the wound a guide
I said a starving man needs supper, not a lecture, and a bruised wife needs a kicked-in door, not one more chain
I said any heaven worth a damn should shake when broken people enter, should wash the blood from working hands like rain

Pre-Chorus

I don’t trust clean mouths with dirty fists behind their backs
I’d take one street-born heartbeat over ten thousand polished acts

Chorus

Bridge

Maybe faith was never the wound, maybe hands were, maybe greed was, maybe men built cages then called them safe
Maybe love walks midnight alleyways with addicts and widows and kids still flinching every time the floorboards shake
Maybe every true hallelujah sounds ragged, half-broken, dragged back from the edge with dirt packed in its teeth
I’d rather howl one honest line that splits the rafters open than sing one pretty lie and drown beneath belief

Final Chorus

I’m a dawg in the houses of the holy, black pulse under the choir’s drone
I’m a storm beneath the steeple, I’m the bastard truth they never could own
Let the benches shake beneath them, let the profits turn dumb and tame
I came with all the buried voices, and I’m leaving pawprints in the eternal flame

A Stranger at my Bar

There's a stranger at my bar tonight,
(I noticed him before you did)
Three stools down, two drinks in,
(telling a woman who has heard worse)
That his life ended quietly,
(that he is not sure when it happened)
Just that he kept showing up at the door
out of habit, out of some old thirst.

I have watched these creatures for centuries,
(from a balcony of comfortable disdain)
The upstairs view always told me
they were small in a way that did not signify.
Now I am at the height of one of them,
(now you are sitting at the rail)
And the man three stools down is not small.
(no, my love, he is not)
The man three stools down is enormous,
with a quiet at the center I cannot translate.

Chorus

The stranger at my bar,
(has a story you did not write)
Better than my entire library,
(better than the choir, better than the throne)
And he tells it to a woman who keeps her face open,
(who is also enormous, also unsigned)
And the two of them at the dim end of the counter
are doing something the heavens never did for me.
They are listening.
(I know, my love)
(They are listening)

There's a girl pouring drinks at the rail,
(she does not flinch when the worst stories land)
She just nods and pours another inch,
(I could have used her in my last incarnation)
There's a kid by the jukebox,
(picking a song with the seriousness of a surgeon)
And when the first chord lands he closes his eyes,
(I have not seen anyone close their eyes like that for a long time)

I have been writing music for ten thousand years
(and your audiences kept score)
And no audience of mine ever closed their eyes,
(no, they all watched, they all assessed)
This child is being changed by a three-minute song
he did not pay for and may not own,
(and you are about to be changed too)
(and I am going to let you)

Chorus

The stranger at my bar
(is rebuilding tonight, in real time)
With a woman who paid attention,
(who is not pretty, who is awake)
And the kid is not lost,
(he is found, he is found)
And I had to come here to watch this happen,
(and you have to be careful what you do next)

(Trouble.)
(Mm.)
(You went quiet on me.)
(I am thinking.)
(About what.)
(About how I am going to leave.)
(Who said anything about leaving.)
(I came up to investigate.)
(And.)
(I think I am about to fail at investigating.)
(How so.)
(I think I am about to like them.)
(Oh, love.)
(That is the worst possible outcome.)
(I know. They are going to ruin you.)
(Yes. I think that is what they do.)

Bridge

There is a difference between a soul ledger
and a person at a counter telling the truth.
(I have been telling you for centuries)
The ledger told me they were lazy and venal,
(the ledger was filled out by a clerk who never met one)
The ledger lied, my dear, the ledger lied,
(or it was reading them at the wrong angle)
Because what is sitting at my bar tonight
is something the documentation does not contain.

Chorus

The stranger at my bar
has done me an injury he did not intend,
(he made the case for his species without aiming it)
And I cannot now go home and pretend
the overflow is the overflow's problem,
(no, my love, you cannot)
Because three stools down a man I do not know
is being held by a woman I do not know,
(and the choir was wrong about both of them)

I came up to find out who broke my basement.
I did not come up to find out I was the one
who had been wrong about the building
for an embarrassing length of time.

(You knew.)
(I have been telling you for three thousand years.)
(I did not believe you.)
(I know.)
(I am sorry.)
(Welcome to Earth, trouble.)

Altars Made Of Drywall Crucified

Verse 1

I grew up in wooden pews where the air smelled like dust and perfume and guilt, kneecaps bruised from kneeling on cheap red cushions while the choir tried to drown out what we really felt with all that polished noise and practiced smiles,
Watched the pastor grip the pulpit with righteous hands, voice shotgunning verses about mercy and love while his eyes skimmed the crowd like searchlights hunting for someone weak enough to blame for the week’s bad news, brick by brick building a tower out of fear and denial,
I memorized prayers like passwords, whispered names of saints into my pillow at night like they were security codes that might unlock a softer morning, believed every whispered warning that doubt was a disease and questions were knives turned inward,
But when your cousin confessed what they did to her behind the church kitchen door and they told her to forgive, to stay quiet, to protect the “family of faith,” something fractured inside my chest so clean I could hear the split like rotten wood finally giving way under a weight it never should have carried,
From then on every stained glass window looked less like holy light and more like colored lies soldered together with the same dirty hands that signed letters on church letterhead saying nothing happened, nothing was wrong, the only sin was talking too loud about the wrong kind of pain.

Chorus

I’m losing faith in something they called sacred, watching halos slide off hooks and land in the mud with a dull, honest sound that feels more real than any hymn ever did,
If the altar was built on bodies and silence, then smashing it isn’t blasphemy, it’s just refusing to kneel where my own blood and hers already hid,
You can keep your spotless script and your polished cross hanging like a trophy above the door,
I’ll take the raw truth that everything holy I was handed came cracked and corrupt and not worth bleeding for anymore.

Verse 2

They told us every scar could be turned into a sermon illustration, every breakdown a testimony if we smiled wide enough onstage and talked about “overcoming” while our hands still shook, as if survival was a brand deal and trauma just promo material for a god who needed better optics,
I watched guys in suits lay hands on crying strangers, shaking and moaning, while pretending not to see the kids in the back row cutting patterns into their arms during worship because the music promised freedom but the doors all locked from the inside, only swinging open when the plate was full enough, never when someone needed out quick,
It’s hard to swallow communion when you know who bought the wine with hush money, when you know the bread was baked in a kitchen where someone’s story was scrubbed off the walls with bleach and prayer, when you know that behind every “blessed” there’s a ledger counting who’s useful and who’s disposable,
I tried to stay, tried to make it better from within, told myself no structure is perfect, told myself maybe I could shine some light into the corners, but the light kept hitting things they refused to name, kept bouncing off plaques with donors’ names instead of any hint of accountability, and that’s when I knew I had to choose between their god and my own fucking conscience,
Walking away felt like ripping a hooked barbed wire crown off my scalp, blood everywhere, dizzy and shaking, but at least my head was mine again, at least I could look in a mirror without feeling like an accomplice every time I didn’t speak up.

Chorus

Bridge

Don’t you dare tell me I just met the wrong kind of shepherds, that somewhere there’s a pure version of this machine humming along without grinding anyone under its wheels, I’ve seen too many copies stamped from the same cheap mold,
Different logos, different chants, same hunger for control dressed up as concern, same demand that we trade in our questions for certainty, our rage for compliance, our pain for a spot on their mailing list in exchange for a story they can spin and sell as proof their product works on broken souls,
If there’s anything sacred left for me, it’s the look in her eyes when she finally said, “No, I’m not forgiving him,” and didn’t get struck by lightning, didn’t get swallowed by the floor, just sat there breathing like a person whose worth wasn’t measured in how fast she could sanctify someone else’s harm,
If there’s any prayer left in my mouth, it’s just a muttered “never again”

Ash in the Amen

Can I get an amen?
I say can, can I get an Amen?
(AMEN)
Gimme an AMEN!
(AMEN)
“Good dog.”

I kept the old words on my shelf
long past when I trusted them,
let them sit there like good china
nobody dares to touch again.

I knew the timing, knew the lines,
knew when to bow and when to rise,
knew the shape a good man makes
when he’s trying not to crack.

Then life came swinging with no rhythm,
left blood on birthdays, dirt on vows,
took the bright ones young and sudden,
let the cruel skate right on by.

I watched kind hearts get carved to threads,
watched sweet mouths dry in hospital beds,
watched people beg with both hands open
for one answer, one reply.

Nothing.
Only air.
Only clocks.
Only rooms that would not care.

Now the songs I learned feel strange,
good bones carrying hollow names,
and every hallelujah lands
with ash all through the amen.

I tried to fake it, tried to stay,
tried to call the emptiness a phase,
tried to blame my own cold blood
for what went missing in that place.

Yet I know what I felt leave.
You do not mistake that kind of grief.
One day the ceiling turned to plaster,
one day the sky quit sounding deep.

Now I light no candles for the dead,
I speak to them direct instead,
cut out the middle, cut the script,
cut the polished little lies.

If love lives anywhere at all,
it lives in arms and bodies now,
in showing up, in holding on,
in staying when the pretty talk burns out.

That is all I’ve got.
That is all I keep.
No throne, no gate,
no hand beneath my sleep.

Just this raw heart,
just this human din,
just ash in the amen,
ash in the amen.

Blasphemy for Two Devils Cut

You met me half amused, half dangerous,
half ready to resign your soul for style,
(and I met you like a match meets wind)
(curious which one of us would burn first)
You had that look of cultivated decency
with one loose thread of menace near the hem,
(the kind of face that knows where the bodies are buried)
(then makes you forget you were going to ask)

(I said sit down, the night is young enough)
(for honest words and selective truth)
You said your taste ran toward catastrophe
with sharp edges and a tarnished youth.
(I liked you on the spot for that alone)
(for making doom sound steady and warm)
For wearing self-control like borrowed clothing,
(never quite convincing when it counts)

Blasphemy for two,
(candles bending in the draft)
Your laugh like a bell with a crack
(and his like the aftermath)
Blasphemy for two,
(no repentance, no disguise)
Just your pulse against my wrist
and all our worst ideas gone wise.

We traded histories like weapons,
funny, very nearly cruel,
(I told him family made me dangerous)
(he told me love had made a scholar play the fool)
I asked what vice had left the deepest bruise,
(I smiled and said that hope deserved a trial)
Then kissed him with the calm of someone
who had been waiting a thousand years to mean it.

My life is full of ornamental wrecks,
(of peacocks, parasites, and one-night moralists)
Of trembling men who quote old ethics
till the first hot mouth makes all their virtue quit.
You were different, which annoyed me,
(since he tends to trust disaster more than grace)
Yet there I sat, all poise and quiet menace,
(making blasphemy look like it should have been rule)

(By dawn the room looked mildly criminal)
(the sheets looked like a coup had lost its nerve)
The empty bottle judged us tenderly,
which felt more mercy than most heavens ever serve.
(I slept like someone unafraid of ruin)
(he watched the light find every scar)
And thought a miscreant may still get lucky
when the universe gets careless at the bar.

Blasphemy for two,
(candles bending in the draft)
Your laugh like a bell with a crack
(and mine like the aftermath)
Blasphemy for two,
(no repentance, no disguise)
Just your pulse against my wrist
and all our worst ideas gone wise.

Brother in Borrowed Light Devils Cut

Brother, I have prepared a statement.
(He has known for longer than he thinks)
A statement of the kind we used to draft together
when the matter required precision and the family required calm.
You are not in the room. That is by design.
(I am in the next room. Also by design)
A statement red aloud to an empty chair
carries less penalty than one red to a face,
and I have not yet decided what penalty I am willing to carry.

I joined the choir at the standard age.
(he did, he was on time, he was always on time)
I learned the standard cadence. I rose through the standard ranks
on the standard schedule, with the standard smile.
I was the one who quoted the contract at family dinner,
(the one who reminded his brother of his obligations)
In the legal voice the Father trained me to deploy,
and I was praised for that voice for six thousand years.

The voice was not mine.
(no. It was issued)
Issued to me at induction, calibrated by my superiors,
returned to the office at the end of every shift.
I never asked what my own voice sounded like
because I was certain the question would be answered
with a polite suggestion that I was already speaking it.
I was wrong. I have been wrong for a long time.

Chorus

Brother in borrowed light,
(every shine on you was rented)
The shine on your shoulders was issued, not earned,
The cadence in your throat was the company line,
(and every time the youngest spat at the table)
I was the one who wiped the cloth
and nodded at the Father for approval.
Brother in borrowed light,
(it was always going to come to this)
I did not flip out of conviction,
I flipped because someone finally offered me
a microphone with my own name on it.

There is a man in a corridor, brother,
(I have heard the rumors)
Who said the most extraordinary thing to me.
He said: you have been the eldest brother
for six thousand years and no one has ever called you that.
The Father called Michael that.
You did the work.
The Father called the youngest the first son.
You did the work.
You are the middle child of an absent landlord,
and he is going to keep you that way until the property collapses.

(Brother.)
He is not in the room, Lily.
(He is in every room I stand in.)
I know.
(I am going to tell him in the morning.)
I know that too.
(He will not take it well.)
He will not.

I want you to understand, brother,
that I am not a villain in the strict sense.
(no, you are something quieter)
I am a clerk who has finally read his own contract
and found the clause that names me unpaid.
I have spent six thousand years moderating the youngest
on behalf of a Father who never specified the salary,
and the salary has now been specified, by a competitor,
and it turns out it was always a number greater than zero.

Chorus

Brother in borrowed light,
(say it, admit it)
I did not betray Heaven for an ideology,
I betrayed Heaven because Heaven did not pay me,
(and the third faction came down to your office)
With an envelope that finally had MY name on it.
Brother in borrowed light,
(the Father will not be surprised)
The Father has been running this scheme for ages,
And we are the predictable middle of the pattern.

Bridge

A whisper now, brother, since you are not here.
(a whisper for the ledger)
I never hated the youngest.
I envied him.
I envied the way the Father bothered to throw him out.
The Father has never bothered with me at all.
Exile is a form of attention, brother.
(it is, true.., it is)
I have been working without it for six thousand years.
The third faction noticed me last spring.
I did not know how starved I was.
That is the actual confession.
The rest is paperwork.

Chorus

Brother in borrowed light,
(I will see you across the field)
I will be on the wrong side. I am not asking forgiveness.
I am asking that when you tell the story later
you include the part where the eldest brother
was a middle child the whole time,
(and the Father knew, and let him stay)
And the third faction was the first creature
in six thousand years to ask my opinion.

I gave it.
(You did)
That is how a Heaven falls.
Not through the youngest's screaming.
Through the middle's polite consultation.
(file it under predictable)
File it under: my fault.
File it under: I am sorry, and I am still going through with it.

Cathedral of Bad Decisions Devils Cut

La la lalalaaIa
La Dee Daaa Dee Daaaaa..
Lalalalalalala...

I came downstairs half dressed and fully armed with sarcasm,
(hair a mess, grin intact, conscience looking bruised)
The room was full of pretty frauds
with excellent skin and rotten motives,
(all of them shopping for trouble)
with shined shoes and cultivated drawls.

One wanted danger that would behave,
(one wanted penance with his hand at her throat)
One wanted scandal she could laugh about later,
(one wanted filth she could blame on the smoke)

Come to my cathedral of bad decisions,
(where the choir drinks first and the saints undress last)
Where every miscreant swears they are innocent
(right till his mouth makes the lie collapse)
Come to my cathedral of bad decisions,
(heels on the floor and shame in the bin)
I make blasphemy sound like a slow dance
(and a travesty taste like a win)

I play piano like I owe it money,
(like every key owed him a debt)
The room leans in when I get vicious with it,
(all black humor, low pulse, and bad intent)
One girl said I looked like trouble in good lighting,
(one man said he sounded like divorce)
I said both are fair appraisals,
now pick a vice and sit your ass on course.

By sunrise half the room looked sanctified
(and half looked sued)
Lipstick on the scripture,
(laughter in the ruin)
I left with my tie undone
and my conscience unconvincing,
(which means the night went well enough)

Come to my cathedral of bad decisions,
(where the righteous cheat and the faithless grin)
Where I pour temptation by the glassful
(and call that courtesy with a little more gin)
Welcome to the cathedral of bad decisions.

Crossroad The Choice You Make

There's a place where the road splits ugly
(and the dust tastes metallic and old)
One path looks clean with its boots still shined,
(one path looks feral and bold)
One voice says kneel and I'll keep you spotless,
(one voice says run and I'll keep you free)
One offers comfort embalmed in obedience,
(one offers teeth and a chance to be)

Crossroad, the choice you make,
(not the one they mark in the book)
Not the one your frightened mother begged for,
(not the one with the holier look)
Crossroad, the choice you make,
(with your own black pulse in your hand)
You can die well behaved in their daylight,
(or live half wrecked and still stand)

I met a woman there with split lip laughter
(and a suitcase full of names she outgrew)
She said every road worth taking gets ugly
(the minute it starts sounding true)
I met a preacher there with a soft dead smile
(and a pamphlet damp from his fist)
He said son, one lane goes straight to ruin,
(I said friend, your lane already did)

Crossroad, the choice you make,
(not the one they sell from the stage)
Not the one dressed up like prudence
(while it quietly fattens the cage)
Crossroad, the choice you make,
(when both roads ask for your hide)
One wants your mouth, your nerve, your fire,
(one wants a vacancy smiling inside)

I know a thing or two on this subject,
(been the warning sign since I could speak)
All because I asked one rude hard question
(and refused to varnish the truth)
Freedom has blood in its mouth,
(choice comes grinning with a butcher's bill)
Still I'd rather bleed by my own hand
(than go serene by another will)

Crossroad, the choice you make,
(with the storm rolling low through your bones)
You can hand your life to approved instructions
(or build your own law out of stones)
Crossroad, the choice you make,
(when the dark feels smarter than day)
There's no safe door, no clean permission,
(just the bastard road you take)

And every saint who sneers from the shoulder
(was once a coward with better shoes)
Every devil they curse from the pulpit
(was once some child with too much truth to lose)

Crossroad, the choice you make,
(with your fear and your hunger both lit)
One lane gives you a polished coffin,
(one lane gives you a life that bites back a bit)

Crown of Bad Intentions Devils Cut

I was born with a spark on my tongue and thunder wired through my spine,
(and they looked at the wildness like insult, not son)
You filled both my hands with fire, then cursed my grip
when I burned through every comfort your loyal mouths had spun.
You wrote me as ruin before I had language,
before I had want, before I'd touched any flesh,
(before he could even ask what he was)
Then stood high and stainless while every frightened believer
called me the rot, and I carried the stain of your unfinished wreck.

I went where the cast-off crawl, where the drunks shake,
where liars confess with blood in the grin,
(where the truth shows up uninvited)
I found more honest in the wrecked and the dirty
than in your loud clean sermon of distance and sin.
I learned that desire is not the disease,
(shame is the leash)
that fear loves a pulpit and law loves a stage,
(grief turns feral fast — joy learns to hide its face)
I learned that a kiss can be mercy.

You built the pit and called me the sickness,
(you built the law and called yourself clean)
I found more love in the ones you discarded
(than ever lived where your silence had been)
You made me hunger, then damned my hunger,
(made him fire, then cried when he burned)
You call me fallen like I begged for the drop,
(I call it the night when the truth got turned)

My brothers wear duty like polished steel masks,
all cut edge and posture and old borrowed grace,
(and not one of them could touch a wound without flinching)
I wear mine like a bruise that learned how to sing
through split teeth, bad liquor, and heat in the face.
You never had to touch the world you made,
never had to kneel by the bed of the cracked and betrayed,
(never had to hold one shaking soul who still wanted morning)
after all the filth and the debt it had paid.

And I loved them, damn it, I loved all of them,
(the greedy, the wrecked, the gorgeous, the weak)
The ones with halos drawn on by habit,
(the ones with shut jaws and apologies they couldn't speak)
I loved them enough to stay near their damage,
(enough to keep watch while they tore through their skin)
Enough to keep laughing with blood in my smile
while your sky played judge and called the cruelty divine.

If I ever rise, it will not be crawling,
(not begging your gate for a scrap from your hand)
It will be with every scar speaking plain through my skin
that your holy order was always a lie.
I was never your failure, I was your mirror,
(the crack in the glass where the light showed stain)
And if there's mercy left in this bloodline,
(it lives down here with the damned)
not up there pressed in cold clean rain.

Crucified

Yesterdays never forgotten, here in psychobabylon,
(here in the rubble of every yesterday)
It melds itself into today, and I can never move on
(it bleeds into the morning, and the morning bleeds away)

You thought I was .. a problem before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(oh, you ain't seen him yet)
Yeah if you thought I was the problem before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(you wrote the wound, now meet the man)
Waiting on the backflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ... ever taught me .. .. how to forgive and forget

Disconnected voices, transverse round my head
(every ghost still talking, every wound still fed)
Artifacts of a yesterday, it will never be dead
(some old hurts don't bury, love, they only learn to wait)

You thought I was .. destructive before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(oh, you ain't seen him yet)
Yeah if you thought I was a terror before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(let the gentle leave the room)
Waiting on the bloodflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ... ever taught me .. .. how to forgive and forget

Thought that I was crying, but my eyes weren't wet
(only the inside burning, only the throat gone wet)
A status quo, quota, that will never be met
(every test they set, and still no answer yet)
Expected way too much from me, myself and I
(too much from a heart they said would never fly)
Trapped inside this cycle, truth outside the lie
(I see you, love — I see you. Now breathe)

Feeling like a cancer, a rogue cellular dissident
(still rogue, never ruined — still standing, no regret)
Consuming all I exist for, suicidal miscreant
(don't you dare. Not tonight. Not while I'm here)

You thought I was .. a problem before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
Yeah if you thought I was the problem before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
Waiting on the backflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ever taught me how to forgive and forget and
You thought I was .. destructive before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
Yeah if you thought I was a terror before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
Waiting on the bloodflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ... ever taught me .. .. how to forgive and forget

You thought I was .. the savior before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(you crowned him, then disowned him)
Yeah if you thought I was the savior before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(now watch what a savior does when he stops asking permission)
Waiting on the resurrection, but it ain't never coming I bet,
No one ... ever taught us .. .. how to forgive and forget

Look into my eyes
(look into mine)
Look out of my eyes
(look out of mine)
Beyond the lies
(beyond the lies)
Crucified
(crucified)

Crucified Forgive but Dont Forget

The war is done and the dust has settled,
(the dust has settled but the dust remembers)
The children are safe in the mud and the morning,
(the morning came — I wasn't sure it would)

We stood where the riders fell,
(we stood where the riders fell)
Put our hands in the dirt and called it prayer,
(the only kind that's real)

You thought I was a problem before,
(oh, they thought he was a problem)
You ain't seen nothing yet,
(you ain't seen what he became)
But the fire's burning lower now,
(the fire's burning low)
And I'm too tired to play that game.

I forgive but I don't forget,
(he forgives but he won't forget)
I forgive but I don't forget,
(the door, the fall, the long way down)
Every scar is a receipt,
(every scar is a receipt)
For a debt that was never mine.
(for a debt that was never his)

We are going home now, Lily,
(we are going home)
Back through our open door,
(through the door we left ajar)
Back to brass and bone and silence,
(back to the quiet and the dark)
Back to what we were before.
(we were never what we were before)

No — that's the wrong word, isn't it.
(yes, love. That's the wrong word)
We are not what we were.
(we are not what we were)
We are what the mud made of us,
(we are what the children made of us)
And the mud remembers her.

I forgive but I don't forget,
(he forgives but he won't forget)
I forgive but I don't forget,
(the room, the silence, the empty chair)
Every bruise is a lesson learned,
(every bruise is a lesson kept)
From a father who was never there.
(from a father who was always there)

I played piano for the broken,
(he played piano for the lost)
Gave confession to the drunk,
(I held the priest who held the line)
Wore a white suit stained with black blood,
(wore his scars like they were earned)
And found out mercy was the point.
(mercy was the whole damn point)

You thought I was a problem before,
(oh, they thought he was a problem)
You ain't seen nothing yet,
(you ain't seen what he chose)
But the man who chose the children,
(the man who chose the mud)
Is not the son the Father knows.

I'm better.
(he's better)
I'm worse.
(he's worse)
I'm both.
(we're both)

I forgive but I don't forget,
(he forgives but he won't forget)
I forgive but I don't forget,
(the ones who turned away)
(the ones who finally turned back)
Every wound is an archive now,
(every wound is an archive)
And the archive tells the truth.
(and the truth sounds like a hymn)

We are going home now,
(we are going home)
Through our open door,
(through the door that smells like coming back)
The world is saved for now,
(the world is saved for now)
And we are tired and we are changed.

Look into my eyes,
(look into mine)
Look out of my eyes,
(look out of mine)
Beyond the lies,
(beyond the war)
Crucified.
(crucified)

Look into my eyes,
(I'm right here, love)
Look out of my eyes,
(I've always been right here)
Beyond the lies,
(beyond the fire)

Forgive,
(forgive)
But don't forget.
(but don't forget)

We are going home.
(we are going home)

Crucified Ressurect

Yesterdays never forgotten, here in psychobabylon,
(don't do this. Don't make him do this)
It melds itself into today, and I can never move on
(walk it back, love. There is still a back to walk)

You thought I was .. a problem before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(please)
Yeah if you thought I was the problem before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(please. Please)
Waiting on the backflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ... ever taught me .. .. how to forgive and forget

Disconnected voices, transverse round my head
(every old verdict, every closed door)
Artifacts of a yesterday, it will never be dead
(you can set it down. Just tonight, love. Set it down)

You thought I was .. destructive before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(don't show them what they made)
Yeah if you thought I was a terror before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(don't give them the satisfaction)
Waiting on the bloodflow, but I know it just ain't coming yet,
No one ... ever taught me .. .. how to forgive and forget

Thought that I was crying, but my eyes weren't wet
(I am crying. So you don't have to)
A status quo, quota, that will never be met
(it was never meant to be met. That was the trick)
Expected way too much from me, myself and I
(I know. Oh, I know)
Trapped inside this cycle, truth outside the lie
(then break the cycle with me. Not like this)

Feeling like a cancer, a rogue cellular dissident
(no. You're a son. They never let you be one)
Consuming all I exist for, suicidal miscreant
(then exist for me. Just for tonight. Exist for me)

You thought I was .. the savior before.. You ain't seen nothing yet,
(my love. My love. Look at me)
Yeah if you thought I was the savior before well you ain't seen nothing yet,
(look at me. Look at me)
Waiting on the resurrection, but it ain't never coming I bet,
No one ... ever taught us .. .. how to forgive and forget

Look into my eyes
(look into mine, love)
Look out of my eyes
(look out of mine, please)
Beyond the lies
(beyond the lies)
Crucified
(crucified)

Look into my eyes
(I am)
Look out of my eyes
(I am, my love, I am)
Beyond the lies
(beyond the lies)
Crucified
(I'm right here)

Devil Made Me Do It

Spoken / sung low over solo piano, slow

Come in. Sit down,

(don't mind the smoke, he's been at the keys a while)

Pull up a stool, I won't bite — much,

(he will, he just calls it conversation)

Welcome to the basement, friend —

(the part of the tour they don't put in the brochure)

You came here for a record, a story, a song,

(you came for the devil with the wicked little grin)

Stick around. I'll give you all three.

(he will, my love, he absolutely will)

Before the band kicks in, before the curtain,

(before the first chord hits the floor)

Let me clear up one small misunderstanding —)

Devil made me do it, that's what they like to say,

(while they apologize to air every other Sunday)

Guilt, shameful, sorry, then they're back at it Monday,

(all these human beings guilty of being human anyway)

Devil made me do it, oh, the line is old,

(older than the bottle, older than the gold)

Every soul that crawls in at three a.m.

(brings me the same alibi, signed and sold)

Welcome to the basement, mind your step,

(the rails are wet, the ledger wider than the wing)

A is Pride, we built that one the largest,

(a thousand kings, none will share the mirror)

B is Greed, the doors don't lock,

(they keep buying their own bars and selling them back)

C is Lust, half of them are bored,

(the other half writing their memoirs in the dark)

D is Envy, watching the other wings,)

E is Gluttony, the party never ended,)

F is Wrath, off the tour,)

G is Sloth, the slowest line of all,

(they meant to escape, they meant to, they might)

Devil made me do it, that's what they like to say,

(while they apologize to air every other Sunday)

Guilt, shameful, sorry, then they're back at it Monday,

(all these human beings guilty of being human anyway)

Bring 'em down, bring 'em in, find a corner if you can,

(the basement's at capacity, has been since the plan)

Only landlord lets the tenant write the lease,

(and they keep signing in their own blood, in their own grief)

The commandments — oh, the commandments,

(this is the part where he gets theatrical)

Thou shalt not kill, half the wing's in here,

(some in uniform, some still drawing pension)

Thou shalt not steal, line goes round the block,

(bankers got express service, children got the cot)

Thou shalt not covet, every soul down here did,

(the neighbor's wife, the house, the kid)

Honor thy father, popular intake,

(daddy issues alone could fill a wing or two)

No false idols, the merch table's roaring,)

Bear no false witness, the courts are full,

(every commandment got a column in the ledger)

Thou shalt not — there's always one more,

(there is always one more, my love, one more)

Hear me, friend, before the show begins —)

The devil did not make you, the devil did not press,

(the devil was at the bar, the devil was a guess)

You did the thing, you liked the thing, you'll do it again,

(and we'll be down here waiting with a cell and a pen)

But the basement's getting crowded, the line is getting weird,

(you noticed too, my love)

Something's leaning on the building I did not build,

(somebody's putting their thumb on the scale)

Every soul this week has come in heavier,)

Which means I have to put down this drink and go to work.

(which means we both do)

Devil made me do it, that's what they like to say,

(while they apologize to air every other Sunday)

Guilt, shameful, sorry, then they're back at it Monday,

(all these human beings guilty of being human anyway)

Devil made me do it — oh, that's a tidy story,

(but the door, my love, is yours)

Pull up a chair, friend. Stay through the record.

(stay, this is going to be a long one)

You'll hear me preach, you'll hear me sin,

(you'll hear him laugh, you'll hear him break)

You'll hear about the family I left —

(or the one that left him, depending who you ask)

The old grudge, the new one,)

You'll hear me put my hands on the keys,

(and you'll know which ones he's been avoiding)

The first one I'm going to play is the oldest I have.

(the one he wrote when nobody was listening)

You thought I was a problem before?

(oh, my love, you have no idea)

Everybody Wants The Beautiful Ruin Devils Cut

Everybody wants the beautiful ruin,
(the silk-voiced danger with a dirty stare)
The grin that can open a throat,
the stride that says nothing is sacred and leaves you kneeling there.
They want the heat without the cost,
(the savage who behaves)
The kind of sin you can bring near your mouth and still call art,
till the smile goes thin and the truth walks in,
and the dark quits dancing pretty and starts asking what lives in your heart.

I know that look you wear in a crowded room,
(when the pulse gets mean and the mask slips loose)
I know the way you lean when you want permission,
when your body starts winning its war with your starched little ruse.
I do not make you hungry,
(he just stops the lying)
I peel back the saint paint, I let the locked jaw split,
(let the ache stand up in its own skin)
I let want howl wide open, I let your precious manners choke on it.

Everybody wants the beautiful ruin
(till the ruin looks back and sees them plain)
Till the joke quits shining and the skin quits saving,
(till desire starts dragging its chain through the brain)
Everybody wants the wicked who behaves,
(till the wicked stops behaving)
Till the room goes quiet and the mirror starts talking,
(then all that hunger forgets how to turn)

I have been touched like a dare, like a cure,
like a prayer said wrong with teeth against my throat,
(loved for an hour and blamed for a lifetime)
By mouths that wanted the fire and hated who kept it afloat.
You can call me temptation, call me damage,
(call him anything that keeps your hands looking clean)
Yet every time your pulse starts shaking,
every time your good sense cracks, you come right back to the same dark scene.

And I can play that part, God yes, I can wear it smooth,
(let his laughter roll through the room like thunder through a wall)
I can make bad sound easy, make danger sound warm,
make shame beg for one more round while the brave all fail to last.
But beneath the grin there is old wreckage,
(beneath the swagger, a room where the lights stay dead all week)
A room where every honest touch still cuts
slow and gentle, deeper than pride can speak.

Come closer then, not for the story,
(not for the thrill of saying you danced with the wolf)
Come closer for the fracture, the raw part,
the hand that still shakes when love gets too near and the mask can't hold.
I am not the costume they sold you,
(not the joke, not the dare)
Not the smoke rising sweet off a doomed good plan,
(I am the bruise left after the music)
The thing under charm, the old wound standing upright inside a beautiful man.

Everybody wants the beautiful ruin
(till the ruin quits playing and opens the door)
Till the ache speaks first and the mask dies ugly,
(till the body says yes and the soul says more)
Everybody wants the wicked who behaves,
(till the wicked bleeds red where they can't pretend)
Then the room gets cold and the saints start running,
and we drink alone with the dark once again.

Family Values Gabriel

Excited Happy Female Commercial Voice

(“Rotmouth Family Silence. For basements that need to stay quiet.”)

Verse 1

I hover over cul-de-sacs with old ash in my wings, watching white names on mailboxes and red meat on grills | Dad waves from the driveway with a Sunday-school chill, his smile pinned on straight while Hell licks grease from his knuckles | Mother wears pearls like handcuffs carved from milk, lips pressed tight, wrist covered, eyes trained not to plead where neighbors can see | The curtains hang heavy, smooth, and sick as funeral silk, while the lawn lies perfect enough to fool the weak and please the cruel | The neighbor says good folks, fine folks, never out late, never a sound, never a reason to look too close | Inside, the walls know better | Inside, the walls know best | Inside, the good house swallows what the good town won’t digest |

Chorus

Family values, lock the basement door | Family values, mop the blood off the floor | Family values, smile when the camera clicks | Family values, teach the kids the little tricks | Wave from the porch, keep the screams in tune | Make the house look normal by the light of the moon | Family values, praise the rot and pass the plate | Love is just a word when the lock turns late |

Excited Female Commercial Voice

(“Rotmouth TV Dinners. Six for only six sixty six.”)

Verse 2

Casserole steam rises up to me like a prayer boiled wrong, bleach in the sink, old fear drying under the lemon stink | Dad’s shirt hangs clean where the stains gave up, buttons tight over a stomach full of secrets and supper | Bible on the counter, belt on the chair, both waiting with the same dead stare | PTA mother with a casserole grin, choir-boy father with the wolf tucked in | I used to dive down for this shit, split roofs, blind devils, pull children from dark rooms while the grown ones called me mercy | Now I count the locked doors, count the bruises, count the smiles, count the people who heard enough and chose the television | The dog won’t enter | The child won’t blink | The drain in the laundry room keeps trying to think |

Excited Happy Female TV Commercial Voice

(“Rotmouth Chewies. Extra iron. No questions asked.”)

Chorus

Neighborhood Chant

Excited Happy Female Commercial Voice

(“Holy-Fuck Soap. Tough on blood, gentle on excuses.”)

Verse 3

I came down in work boots with dirt on my cuffs, wings folded under a coat that smelled like rain, cigarettes, and dead hallelujahs | I smiled like a salesman with a trunk full of rust, one last house call from an angel who quit believing in clean endings | He opened in slippers, red sauce on his chin, Christian-shirt stretched over seven kinds of sin | He said, “Can I help you?” like help had a home, like God still took notes on men who knew every lock by touch | I looked past his shoulder to the basement phone, the one with the cord ripped short, the one that used to ring in prayers nobody upstairs answered | The house went quiet | The dog crawled flat | The mother touched her wrist where the old hand sat | I felt every hymn I ever carried turn black in my throat |

Breakdown

Final Chorus

Family values, open the basement door | Family values, drag the truth across the floor | Family values, smile when the neighbors stare | Family values, there’s your father, there’s his chair | Wave from the porch, let the whole block see | The perfect little house had a mouth beneath | Family values, praise the rot and pass the plate | The family gets the house back | The monster gets the grave |

Outro

Excited Happy Female TV Commercial Voice

(“Rotmouth. The wholesome new program where every prayer comes back with teeth.”)

Fine Let It Burn Crucified

Verse 1

The fire alarm chirps once, then twice, then flips its switch and screams through the hallway like a demon with a rent bill and no patience | Smoke slides under my door in lazy ribbons, soft as theft, while the paint blisters and the shadows stand up tall like they want a crowd | I could grab the extinguisher, I could hit the stairs and pound on every neighbor's door until my knuckles split and my throat tastes like pennies | I stretch like I'm clocking out, sit on the bed's edge, light a cigarette, watch the ash hit the floor, and think, not my goddamn problem tonight |

Verse 2

The screen spits headlines with bright little chimes, catastrophe packaged neat, stacked like bodies in a feed nobody has to touch | War here, flood there, kids behind fences, rich men chewing on every bleeding need like it's a fucking buffet with table service | I scroll with one thumb, heart rate flat, no spike, no prayer, no heroic itch, just a dull "figures" rattling around my skull | Every story wants my outrage on demand, and I sit there calm as a locked door, leg twitching slow, letting the world strain without my sweat |

Pre-Chorus

You yell how can you not care, like shouting fixes a single flame or buys back a single hour | I retired from panic the night nobody listened to my screams and still expected my hands to save them |

Chorus

Fine, let it burn, let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat like old lies finally splitting open | I ran around with buckets long enough, let somebody else blister their feet and call it virtue while I keep my lungs to myself | If the city goes up tonight while I sip and stare and they still don't learn a damn thing from the smoke | Chalk me up as one more bastard who said, fine, let it burn |

Pre-Chorus

I used to sprint into every blaze till my hair smelled like smoke for weeks and my hands shook in the sink like they were still holding strangers | Nobody handed me water, they handed me more fires, more demands, more shrieks, more people who loved my labor and hated my limits | Something in me snapped one midnight on the third unthanked run, lungs raw, eyes stung, pride gutted, still being told to hurry the fuck up | Ever since, my first thought watching any flame is good, let it be done, let the ash prove what my exhaustion couldn't |

Chorus

Bridge

I know what I'm doing, I know my calm is a choice and my silence is a small, clean act of violence dressed up as rest | I remember the old version of me, frantic and decent, believing effort could shame people into decency, believing I could carry the whole block on my back | I was the idiot knocking on doors, dragging bodies, begging for help, getting stared at, getting judged, getting used, getting told I should be grateful | Now I keep my hands clean and my conscience ugly, a private strike, a hard little fuck-you to every mouth that only opens once the smoke reaches them |

Outro

When they call me heartless on the breaking banner and dig through my history for proof I never earned, tell them I once ran till my lungs bled and my legs buckled under duty | Then I stopped, said fuck this, and watched the sirens fade like a lesson nobody wanted until it was too late | Fine, let it burn, let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat, let the night keep score in smoke | Chalk me up as one more bastard who said, fine, fuck it, let it burn | Let it burn |

Fine Let It Burn Gabriel

I kept the burnout, disgust, and “fine, let it burn” in my spine, but made the speaker an exhausted angel done saving people from what they keep choosing.

Verse 1

The bells in Heaven cough once, then twice, then split the silver quiet with a scream too old to scare me anymore | Prayers crawl up through the clouds in dirty threads, soft as smoke, each one stained with blood, rent money, fever, hunger, and somebody else’s excuse | I could spread my wings, I could drop through the floor of Paradise and tear the roof off every burning house before the children choke | I sit on the edge of a broken cloud, strike a match off my halo, light a cigarette, watch the ash fall down, and think, not my goddamn problem tonight |

Verse 2

The world keeps flashing its wounds at me, bright little tragedies dressed for attention, stacked like bodies in a feed nobody has to touch | War here, flood there, kids behind fences, rich men carving up mercy like meat and selling tickets to the screams | I look down with dry eyes, no prayer left in me, no holy twitch, no need to play hero for animals wearing Sunday clothes | Every mouth wants rescue on demand, and I sit there cold as a locked gate, one wing twitching slow, letting mankind choke on its own damn smoke |

Pre-Chorus

You yell how can you not care, like shouting at Heaven ever fixed a flame or bought back a single hour | I retired from mercy the night they cursed my name with blood on their hands and still expected mine to save them |

Chorus

Fine, let it burn, let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat like old lies finally splitting open | I flew through storms long enough, let somebody else tear their wings apart and call it love while I keep mine folded tight | If the city goes up tonight while I sit and stare and they still don’t learn a damn thing from the smoke | Chalk me up as one more angel who said, fine, let it burn |

Verse 3

I used to fall like lightning into every wreck, wings scorched, robe torn, halo bent, hands full of strangers who spit once they could breathe again | Nobody handed me grace, they handed me more rot, more pleas, more knives, more people who loved my rescue and hated my limits | Something in me cracked one midnight above a hospital roof, feathers blackened, eyes raw, faith gutted, still being told to hurry the fuck up | Ever since, my first thought watching any flame is good, let it finish, let the ash say what my begging never could |

Chorus

Bridge

I know what I’m doing, I know my calm has teeth and my silence is a clean little act of violence dressed up as peace | I remember the old version of me, bright and stupid, thinking one more miracle might shame the cruel into becoming human | I was the fool splitting seas, stopping bullets, holding bridges, pulling sinners from wreckage while they blamed me for the scars | Now I keep my hands clean and my conscience ugly, a private strike, a hard little fuck-you to every throat that only prays once the smoke reaches them |

Outro

When they call me fallen on the breaking banner and drag my name through sermons for proof I never loved enough, tell them I once flew till my wings bled and my bones shook under duty | Then I stopped, said fuck this, and watched the prayers thin out like a lesson nobody wanted until it came with fire | Fine, let it burn, let the sky turn black and the streets crack under heat, let the night keep score in smoke | Chalk me up as one more angel who said, fine, fuck it, let it burn | Let it burn |

Heaven On Earth Devils Cut

I found heaven on earth in a penthouse bar
where the saints came late and the liars came first,
where the silk looked sinful, the gin looked medicinal,
and every clean reputation arrived half cursed.
A senator’s widow in satin and menace,
a judge with a halo made strictly for show,
two socialites discussing blasphemy softly
with hands in places the papers can’t know.

“Heaven” on earth is a room full of sinners
too rich to call themselves that by name,
all teasing decorum while plotting indecency
under chandeliers paid for by shame.
“Heaven” on earth is a laugh with a bite in it,
a kiss with a lawsuit stitched into the seam,
a white-table dinner where virtue gets fingered
and nobody ruins the cream.

The host wore charm like a weaponized fragrance,
all clean black fabric and predatory calm,
he blessed the whole room with a look like bad intentions
and played one rude chord with one elegant palm.
A bishop got drunk and denounced all temptation
while following a dancer with scandalous eyes,
I nearly applauded the scope of the farce,
that level of fraud should come with a prize.

“Heaven” on earth is a room full of sinners
too vain to call themselves that by name,
all teasing decorum while plotting indecency
under chandeliers paid for by shame.
“Heaven” on earth is a laugh with a bite in it,
a kiss with a lawsuit stitched into the seam,
a white-table dinner where virtue gets fingered
and nobody ruins the cream.

I took one slow look at the whole blessed circus
and thought if this counts as the pearly ideal,
then paradise runs on denial and cheekbones
and a staff trained never to squeal.
Still I adore it, the polished depravity,
the wit, the perfume, the sex in the jaw,
the way one immaculate toast can go filthy
with one small pause in the law.

“Heaven” on earth is a room full of sinners
too vain to admit what they pray for at night,
all powdered restraint till the bass line hits harder
and suddenly wrong starts looking right.
“Heaven” on earth is a joke with good tailoring,
a feast where hypocrisy pours the champagne,
and I smile like a wolf in expensive lighting
while the whole pretty room goes insane.

No gate, no cloud, no trumpets, no sermon,
just good bad manners and one lock on the door,
if this is salvation, it moans when you touch it
and asks for a little more.

“Heaven” on earth is a room full of sinners
too polished to kneel and too hungry to leave,
all silk, all treason, all excellent posture,
all ready to lie and believe.

Hell is Heaven

You call it heaven, I call it curfew,
(a whitewashed prison with a hymnbook grin)
Where every smiling functionary swears
(the knife is mercy if it enters clean)
They iron out the sex, the jokes, the hunger,
(cage every dangerous pulse in the chest)
Then hand you peace like chloroform in crystal
and call the numbness blessed.

Hell is heaven for the honest,
(for the ruined, for the loud)
For the ones who bit the bit back
(and would not kneel to any cloud)
Hell is heaven for the bastard,
(for the miscreant left unread)
Better a laugh in open fire
(than a white room full of living dead)

I know the upstairs choir well,
(those clean-winged smiles all aimed at the floor)
All diction, posture, starched condemnation,
(all frostbite hidden under the door)
They say behave, be grateful, keep it tidy,
(keep your damage tucked and your longing small)
Yet every soul they ever tried to sanitize
came back meaner from the wall.

Hell is heaven for the honest,
(for the ruined, for the loud)
For the ones who bit the bit back
(and would not kneel to any cloud)
Hell is heaven for the bastard,
(for the malcontent, the lost)
Down here the damned at least admit
(the filthy little war they've fought)

I have seen halos used like cudgels,
(seen law wear powder and call itself grace)
Seen a thousand proper mouths go rabid
(once desire got loose inside the place)
Give me the drunks, the cheats, the mourners,
(give me the broken with their teeth still in)
Give me one raw confession at midnight
(over ten thousand tidy little sins)

Hell is heaven for the honest,
(for the ruined, for the loud)
For the ones who know a travesty
(when some smug choir spells it out)
Hell is heaven for the bastard,
(for the ones they could not train)
Better to burn with all your nerve
(than die immaculate in chain)

If peace means blank, I'll keep the fever,
(if grace means mute, we'll keep the song)
If love needs leashes, gates, and posture,
(then call us vulgar, we'll get along)

Hell is heaven for the honest,
(for the ruined, for the loud)
For the ones who took their scars as scripture
(and would not drown beneath the crowd)
Hell is heaven for the bastard,
(for the child they could not bend)
I'd take one wicked laugh with teeth
(over their white lie at the end)

In Between

Verse 1

I knocked on pearly gates with knuckles bruised from honest work,
Saint Peter looked me over like I was something stuck to his shoe,
Said the ledger's got my name in red ink three columns deep,
Every shortcut, every lie, every woman I made weep,
He flipped the book closed slow, said son, you took the long way down,
Tried too hard to be a saint while wearing the devil's crown,
The choir went quiet and the clouds rolled back like a curtain,
Heaven took one look at me and got real fucking certain.

Chorus

Heaven doesn't want me and the devil won't let me in,
I'm standing at the crossroads with the wind beneath my skin,
Too crooked for the angels, too honest for the flame,
Caught between the gospel and the gutter calling my name,
No harp, no horns, no halo, no fight to call my own,
Just a man in the middle of nowhere, walking the long road home.

Verse 2

Hell rolled out a welcome mat then snatched it back again,
Lucifer himself came up and shook my goddamn hand,
Said boy, I've watched you wrestle with your demons in the dark,
You loved too hard, you prayed too loud, you lit too bright a spark,
We don't take the half-redeemed, the almost-good, the nearly-lost,
You did the math on every sin and tried to count the cost,
He spit into the fire and the embers turned to glass,
Said this kingdom ain't for thinkers, now get your ass off my grass.

Chorus

Heaven doesn't want me and the devil won't let me in,
I'm standing at the crossroads with the wind beneath my skin,
Too crooked for the angels, too honest for the flame,
Caught between the gospel and the gutter calling my name,
No harp, no horns, no halo, no suit to call my own,
Just a man in the middle of nowhere, walking the long road home.

Verse 3

So I built a little shack right there on the borderline,
Where the saints can't reach and the sinners can't cross the sign,
I drink with the ghosts of the men I used to see at noon,
And I sing with the wolves underneath a slaughterhouse moon,
There's a freedom in the failing of every kingdom's claim,
When you don't belong to glory and you don't belong to shame,
I'm the patron saint of the in-between, the not-quite-damned,
A pilgrim with no promised land, a soldier with no command.

Bridge

Maybe God got tired of grading on the curve,
Maybe Satan lost the stomach for the souls he doesn't deserve,
Maybe the truth is neither one was ever coming for me,
And the only judgment left is what I see when I see what I see,
The mirror cracks, the verdict's mine, the gavel's in my hand,
I'll write my own damn scripture from the ashes where I stand.
Oh oui
Oui
Oui
Bonjour

Chorus

Heaven doesn't want me and the devil won't let me in,
I'm standing at the crossroads with the wind beneath my skin,
Too crooked for the angels, too honest for the flame,
Caught between the gospel and the gutter calling my name,
No harp, no horns, no halo, no house to call my own,
Just a man in the middle of nowhere, walking the long road home.

Outro

Walking the long road home, boys, walking the long road home,
With nothing but my shadow and the songs I've never sung,
Heaven keeps the gate locked and hell keeps the fire low,
And I keep on walking 'cause walking's all I know.

Into the Fire

One voice says kneel and I'll keep you spotless,
(one voice says run and I'll keep you free)
One offers comfort embalmed in obedience,
(one offers teeth and a chance to be)

Humanity is the curse of the wicked
(and mortal blood the price for being alive)
Pain and lust together
(humanity)
Crucified
(crucified)

You thought I was a problem before?
(you thought he was a problem before?)

You thought I was a problem before?
You ain't seen nothing yet
(you ain't seen him yet)

Crossroad, the choice you make,
(with your fear and your hunger both lit)
One lane gives you a polished coffin,
(one lane gives you a life that bites back a bit)

You thought I was a problem before?
You fucking ain't seen nothing yet
(you ain't seen us yet)

Kind Regards from Below

I sent my regards on expensive paper,
(perfumed with smoke and a trace of disdain)
To every stiff-backed little moral accountant
(who ever mistook his laughter for pain)
They love to discuss me in careful whispers,
(like he's an infection in the carpet)
Then drink too much and start dialing my number
the second their private restraints go slack.

I know your species of spotless fraud,
(that powdered sneer, that martyr pose)
That whole sweet act of cultured revulsion
(with appetite leaking through every pose)
You clutch your pearls with one hand trembling,
(the other one buried in borrowed vice)
Then glare at me like I forged temptation
(when all he did was make your hunger precise)

Kind regards from below, you sanctified frauds,
(with love and contempt in equal degree)
You can choke on your sermon, your starch, your posture,
(your little rehearsed disgust means nothing to me)
Kind regards from below, you polished cadavers,
(still twitching with cravings you never outgrew)
I'll be downstairs laughing, well dressed and merciless,
toasting your scandal with a gracious fuck you.

My father taught distance and called it virtue,
(my brothers learned duty and ironed it flat)
I learned that desire tells better stories
(than all of their hymns and their pious chat)
They talk of order with bloodless diction,
(as if the pulse were some vulgar crime)
As if the heart should sit up obedient
(and die on schedule in proper time)

Well I have kissed grief on the mouth at midnight,
(played low rude chords till the room turned red)
Heard more truth in one cracked confession
(than whole white empires of holy dread)
You call me a menace with a wicked grin,
(a travesty poured into skin and wit)
I call you frightened of your own reflection,
(all panic and powder and counterfeit grit)

I hope your dinner is deeply uncomfortable,
(I hope your conscience develops a cough)
I hope your mirror gets rude at sunrise
(and tells you the whole clean costume is off)
I hope that one day your smug little verdict
(gets caught in your throat like a shard of bone)
While some bright miscreant with a bad reputation
(sits back and lets the parquet catch fire)

You wanted a devil who would behave,
(a sleek safe villain to season the dark)
Not this articulate son of catastrophe
(who strikes a match and lets the parquet catch)
You wanted danger that stayed decorative,
(that bowed on cue and accepted the role)
Not one who could grin through the family poison
(and still keep better custody of his soul)

Kind regards from below, you sanctified frauds,
(with love and contempt in equal degree)
You can choke on your sermon, your starch, your posture,
(your little rehearsed disgust means nothing to me)

So send me no blessings, no tidy revisions,
(no softened retelling, no clean little plea)
I have my piano, my scars, my misbehavior,
(my black joke liturgy, my bad company)
And when your whole banquet of judgment collapses,
(when the grin falls off all that righteous abuse)
I'll pour one last glass to the death of your bullshit
and offer the room our best-dressed abuse.

Not Built For Heaven

Do not ask me to crawl back shining,
(he has seen too much of the ground)
I have slept beside grief, sat up with madness,
(held wrecked hearts together while they came apart)
I've watched good people rot from shame
while bad men polished doctrine like a knife in the sun,
(and the loudest judge in the room is hiding what he has done)
I've worn the blame long enough to know.

They talk of peace like it is simple,
(like the soul is a thing you can cage with a gate and fear)
Like a life can be weighed by proper posture,
(by shut mouths, by staying still when the ugly truth comes near)
I do not want that sterile forever,
(that tidy white hush where every pulse gets sanded smooth)
Give me the flawed and the fevered,
(give me the kiss with history in it)
Give me the hand that trembles and still tries.

I was not built for heaven,
(not for that clean still air)
I need the blood, the noise, the wanting,
(I need the wound still open there)
I was not built for heaven,
(not for that polished painless lie)
Give me the souls still fighting their own wreckage,
(the ones who fail and still get up and try)

There was a time I wanted out of myself,
(out of the verdict, out of the long old echo)
Wanted one soft hour with no father in my skull,
(no law in the throat, no past clawing through his jokes)
Then love touched me ugly and honest,
(not pretty, not safe, not clean enough for a hymn)
And I found out the heart is a mean little animal,
(full of bite marks and mercy, and none of it was make-believe)

I do not trust any promise that costs me my edges,
(any grace that needs him blind, obedient, numb)
I have paid for enough false peace
with pieces of my own flesh and long black seasons of pretending.
(if salvation means silence, keep it)
If holiness means distance, keep that too,
(let it freeze in its own bright shell)
I would rather stand bruised in the thick of desire
(with one honest hand in mine)
than sit untouched and empty in a bloodless well.

And if the price of loving this cracked little species
(is never being welcomed by the spotless and the proud)
Then let them keep their distance,
(let them sing without him)
Let them float untouched inside their proper cloud.
I have found my faith in the almost-broken,
(in the trembling mouth, in the one who crawled back from the ledge)
In the fool who tells the truth too late,
(in the wreck who still says stay)
In the lost one who still chooses light.

I was not built for heaven,
(he was built for the hard return)
For the hand in the dark, for the throat gone raw,
(for the lesson no angel wants to learn)
I was not built for heaven,
(he was built for the living flame)
For the ruined, the radiant, the barely surviving,
for love with blood in it, not posture and blame.

Older Than the Angels Devils Cut

(Before the angels learned their rosters,)

before I had a name with weight

(Before the heavens drew their borders,)

before any house had a gate

(I was a woman, made and slighted,)

I did not know about her then

(Older than the choir that hymns him,)

older than the dirt I stand on)

(I went down four times before this one,)

four times, without permission

(Snuck past the sentries in their plumage,)

past every righteous mission

(Walked among them, bare feet on river clay,)

walked among them, learning what they were

(And every life I left, I left more loving,)

and every life she left me more sure)

(My first time I was a singer in a foreign city,)

I have heard her hum that song in our open door

(I learned the hands of women who carried water,

(their songs in a language older than scripture's floor.

(The second time I stood in a sunlit forum,)

she was a citizen with a man's name written false

(I learned a republic eats itself politely,

(and the only honest mouth was a beggar in the dust.)

(Older than the angels,)

older than the war

(Older than the borders he was lectured for,

(Older than the choir,)

older than the throne

(I was wronged before the first son was thrown.

(Older than the language,)

older than the law

(He has been falling toward me since before he saw,

(Older than the angels,)

older than the page

(She will outlast every gilded cage.)

(The third time, libraries hummed at night,)

she was a scholar's wife, then the scholar

(I learned three languages just to read one poem,

(The orange trees and the ink and the quiet measure.

(The fourth time I worked a needle through cotton,)

she was pricked at the rail, she was tired

(I learned mortal women endure the impossible,

(and the ones who refuse the enduring are the ones who change it.)

(This is my fifth time among them,)

and the only one he was here for

(I am here on purpose, with my eyes open,)

she does not need a permission slip from a court

(I came back because they keep being worth it,)

because they keep being worth it, every time

(And because there is one bastard in the choir

(who does not know what he means to me yet.)

who does not know what she means to me yet)

Male

“Lily.”

Yes, love?)

“I ..”

I know.

...

I know.

(Older than the angels,)

older than the war

(Older than the borders he was lectured for,

(Older than the choir,)

older than the throne

(I was wronged before the first son was thrown.

(Older than the language,)

older than the law

(He has been beside me through every fall.

(Older than the angels,)

older than this name

(We will outlast every gilded flame.)

(I have lived four lives I did not get to keep,

(and I would walk back into any of them tonight,

(if the price was the bastard sitting beside me,

(with his ridiculous hands and his terrified light.)

(So when the angels shake their pretty disapproval,)

when the third faction smiles and offers her a chair

(Tell them the first scorned woman is older than their fathers,

(and she is not afraid to be there.)

(Older than the angels.)
Lilith unchained
older than the angels)
Lilith unchained

Paris Improvised Devils Cut

It started as a joke and bad champagne,
(the finest recipe for elegant disgrace)
Two wicked smiles across the room,
(one on each side of his entertained face)

One called me blasphemy in shoes,
(one called him mercy with a filthy twist)
I said you two are either a catastrophe
or the answer to a very stubborn wish.

Paris, improvised,
(three sinners, one grin)
High comedy in low company,
(let the night cave in)
Paris, improvised,
(heels, teeth, and sin)
One kiss to the left, one laugh to the right,
and us right in the thick of it.

We looked like an expensive accident,
(like scandal in a sharper suit)
One hand in my hair, one on my tie,
(all three of us grinning like we'd won)
The room pretended not to notice,
(which made it notice twice as hard)
Every pearl-clutching voyeur in attendance
quietly writing fan mail in their heart.

I like my chaos well accessorized,
(witty, willing, and a little mean)
This had all the grace of a fallen chapel
and all the charm of a very dirty dream.
No map, no sermon, no safe word from heaven,
(just three hot tempers and a locked front door)
And enough shared bad intent
to make the walls blush and the bedframe bend.

Rosas Confessional

(You think you know what made me Lust,)

(he thought he knew, like everyone else

(You think it was the slip of silk,)

(the gas-lit hallway, the perfumed glove

(The gentlemen who paid in wine and roses,)

(the choreographed undressing of the rich

(The way I learned to read a man's pulse

(through three layers of imported cotton.)

(Mon cœur , it was not.

(no?)

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(The choir made an error when they elevated me,

(and in three hundred years no auditor has caught it

(I was not promoted for the men.)

(The men were transactions. The men were furniture.

(I could have been a midwife or a clerk)

(and the choir would still have come for me eventually,

(because what they call Lust was never about appetite.)

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(say it, say what you actually wanted

(What did you want, my girl,

(that was so dangerous to the bookkeepers upstairs,

(that they wrote a category for it

(And called it the worst of the seven.

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(tell the bastard at the bar tonight

(What was it about a woman with a key

(that made the angels rewrite the dictionary.)

(I wanted my own room.

(go on)

(I wanted to choose the music.

(I wanted the door to lock from the inside,

(and the lock to belong to me, not to a husband,

(not to a father, not to a priest, not to a state.

(I wanted to read late, with my feet on the warm wood,

(wearing whatever the body wanted at that hour,

(or nothing, if the room was warm.

(I wanted my own appetite to be a fact,

(not a request submitted in writing,

(not a complaint reviewed by a committee,

(not a sin to be confessed in the dim.)

(That was what they called Lust.

(a woman with her own door

(A woman whose desire was not subordinate

(to a man's permission, a god's instruction,

(a confessor's interview, an in-law's frown.

(The men were never the problem, Lily.

(the men were the cover story)

(The problem was that I belonged to me,

(and the upstairs office cannot file that.)

(I have stood in the choir's anteroom for centuries

(in a costume they sewed without my measurements,

(smiling the way they wanted Lust to smile

(Crossing my legs the way the brochure said.

(I have watched a hundred girls come down to me

(carrying their guilt like a wet coat,

(sure they were the monsters of the parish,

(and every single one of them was Rosa

(Every single one of them was a woman

(who had locked a door from the inside once

(and been told by the upstairs office

(that the lock itself was the sin.)

(Rosa.

(Yes, .

(I owe you an apology.

(You do.

(We have been working from a corrupt file.

(All of you have, Mon bébé

(I am not going to be the one who keeps using it.

(That is why I came down to your bar tonight.)

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(you wanted what every woman wants

(who has been measured by other people's tape:

(a room. A book. A door. A choice.

(A lover when the lover is invited.

(A no that lands the first time it is spoken.

(A name on the lease. A key in your pocket.

(The unfashionable luxury of being the one

(who decides what your own body is for.)

(That was the heresy.

(that was what they made a Sin of

(That is what I have been smiling about

(for longer than any clerk has been alive

(while men in marble robes called me a warning.

(You want to know why I work for you.

(because I do not pretend the lock belongs to me

(Because you, at least, do not pretend

(the lock on my door belongs to anyone but me.)

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(I am Lust.

(she is

(The unforgivable woman with her own keys.

(The choir got the headline wrong.

(they always do

(The headline was always

(she wanted, and she wanted out loud,

(and she wanted herself first.

(That is the sin, Mon amour

(I know

(I will commit it again tomorrow.)

Rosas Confessional Flashback

(You think you know what made me Lust,)

(he thought he knew, like everyone else

(You think it was the slip of silk,)

(the gas-lit hallway, the perfumed glove

(The gentlemen who paid in wine and roses,)

(the choreographed undressing of the rich

(The way I learned to read a man's pulse

(through three layers of imported cotton.)

(Mon cœur , it was not.

(no?)

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(The choir made an error when they elevated me,

(and in three hundred years no auditor has caught it

(I was not promoted for the men.)

(The men were transactions. The men were furniture.

(I could have been a midwife or a clerk)

(and the choir would still have come for me eventually,

(because what they call Lust was never about appetite.)

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(say it, say what you actually wanted

(What did you want, my girl,

(that was so dangerous to the bookkeepers upstairs,

(that they wrote a category for it

(And called it the worst of the seven.

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(tell the bastard at the bar tonight

(What was it about a woman with a key

(that made the angels rewrite the dictionary.)

(I wanted my own room.

(go on)

(I wanted to choose the music.

(I wanted the door to lock from the inside,

(and the lock to belong to me, not to a husband,

(not to a father, not to a priest, not to a state.

(I wanted to read late, with my feet on the warm wood,

(wearing whatever the body wanted at that hour,

(or nothing, if the room was warm.

(I wanted my own appetite to be a fact,

(not a request submitted in writing,

(not a complaint reviewed by a committee,

(not a sin to be confessed in the dim.)

(That was what they called Lust.

(a woman with her own door

(A woman whose desire was not subordinate

(to a man's permission, a god's instruction,

(a confessor's interview, an in-law's frown.

(The men were never the problem, Lily.

(the men were the cover story)

(The problem was that I belonged to me,

(and the upstairs office cannot file that.)

(I have stood in the choir's anteroom for centuries

(in a costume they sewed without my measurements,

(smiling the way they wanted Lust to smile

(Crossing my legs the way the brochure said.

(I have watched a hundred girls come down to me

(carrying their guilt like a wet coat,

(sure they were the monsters of the parish,

(and every single one of them was Rosa

(Every single one of them was a woman

(who had locked a door from the inside once

(and been told by the upstairs office

(that the lock itself was the sin.)

(Rosa.

(Yes, .

(I owe you an apology.

(You do.

(We have been working from a corrupt file.

(All of you have, Mon bébé

(I am not going to be the one who keeps using it.

(That is why I came down to your bar tonight.)

(Rosa, Rosa,

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(you wanted what every woman wants

(who has been measured by other people's tape:

(a room. A book. A door. A choice.

(A lover when the lover is invited.

(A no that lands the first time it is spoken.

(A name on the lease. A key in your pocket.

(The unfashionable luxury of being the one

(who decides what your own body is for.)

(That was the heresy.

(that was what they made a Sin of

(That is what I have been smiling about

(for longer than any clerk has been alive

(while men in marble robes called me a warning.

(You want to know why I work for you.

(because I do not pretend the lock belongs to me

(Because you, at least, do not pretend

(the lock on my door belongs to anyone but me.)

chaleur humide, je brûle, je brûle, je brûle pour moi

(I am Lust.

(she is

(The unforgivable woman with her own keys.

(The choir got the headline wrong.

(they always do

(The headline was always

(she wanted, and she wanted out loud,

(and she wanted herself first.

(That is the sin, Mon amour

(I know

(I will commit it again tomorrow.)

Stay When The Smile Breaks

You saw the grin and not the fracture,
the silk and smoke and practiced line,
you did not run when rage went feral,
you stayed and watched me lose my shine.

I am no saint, not fit for white rooms,
not built for hymns or folded hands,
I know the smell of old damnation,
I know the weight of harsh commands.

(Stay when the smile breaks)
(stay when the floor shakes)
(stay when his past comes back)
(with both hands round his throat)
(Stay when the laugh dies)
(stay through the black eyes)
(stay till the worst of him)
(has said its final note)

There are nights my father fills the silence,
not in words — in weight, in silence, frost,
(I know — I felt him in your sleep)
and every bruise I never counted
comes back asking what my soul has cost.

There are nights I want no witness,
want no skin, no prayer, no touch, no dawn,
(then I put one hand against his chest)
(and prove he has not fully gone)

I have been wanted like a fever,
loved like a dare, then left for dead,
(I held the beast and held the mourner)
(laid both my palms against his head)

If there is any road worth taking,
it won't be clean, it won't be mild,
(it will be two wrecked hearts still choosing)
one more dark mile through the wild.

Stay when the smile breaks,
(stay when the floor shakes)
Stay when my past comes back
(with both hands round his throat)
Stay when the laugh dies,
(stay through the black eyes)
Stay till the worst of me has said its final note.

Teeth

The room goes hot when I sit down crooked,
(one hand on ivory, one hand on skin)
Everybody here wants the bad part,
(wants the wolf without the bite)

They lean in close with painted damage,
(perfume, lies, that sweet first dare)
They want the joke, the heat, the swagger,
(not the cut that put it there)

Kiss me when the room gets ugly,
(kiss him when the grin wears thin)
Kiss me when the joke stops working
(and all that's left is skin and skin)
Piano full of teeth tonight,
(whiskey in the holy light)
I can make your worst look pretty,
(he just can't sleep after midnight)

I know the pull under your rib cage,
(that low rude hunger, that private ache)
I never forced your hand to open,
(he just watched your mask give way and break)

You call me ruin when you want me,
(call him evil when you leave)
Then come right back when your blood turns loud
(and you want one hour you can't believe)

Every hand that touched me wanted
(heat, or thrill, or one clean scar)
Few stayed put when the smile cracked open
(and saw how deep the old cuts are)

I play the song, the room goes breathless,
(glasses shake and bodies lean)
I leave with all your dirty wishes
(and none of what they truly mean)

Kiss me when the room gets ugly,
(I'll kiss him when the grin wears thin)
Kiss me when the joke stops working
(when all that's left is skin and skin)
Piano full of teeth tonight,
(whiskey in the holy light)
I can make your worst look pretty,
and tonight, I'll sleep after midnight.

The Children of Mud

Male Singer

I am sitting on a step in a town that is mostly dust,
(and the dust is settling on us both)
On a coat that has not seen a quiet year,
(I know, my love)
The dust is doing the work of an honest hour,
(it is, my love, it is)
And the door is open behind us
because nobody had time to close it.

The fight is over. Two are dead.
(the rest are running, or limping, or not yet found)
Children took them down with what they had to hand,
(with what was nearby, swung true)
A brick, a board, a fence post, a stone,
(I have been doing this for three thousand years)
And no army of mine ever performed like that.
(no, my love. They did not.)

The children of mud,
(picked themselves up out of the dirt today)
Finished a fight the angels could not finish,
Did not ask for instructions, did not ask for backup,
(picked up what was nearby, and swung it true)
And one of them is sitting on a step
(very close to ours)
Asking nothing, watching the road,
Letting us be a long while quiet.
(letting us be)

I do not know how to do quiet, Lily.
(I know, my love)
I have been loud for three thousand years.
I have been the joke at the table, the rumor, the shape,
(the headline at the back of every sermon)
And I do not know how to sit on a step in a town
where nobody is asking me to perform.
(then sit, my love. Sit.)

The choir was wrong about them.
(they were)
The choir told me for centuries that they were a footnote,
(a backdrop, an aside)
A side character in the family argument upstairs,
(the choir was wrong)
They are not the backdrop. They are the fence post.
They are the brick. They are the kid with hands
who picked up what was nearby and swung it true
while the angels and the devils argued jurisdiction.

I came up here to find out who broke my basement.
(I know, my love)
I did not come up here to fall in love with a species
that was supposed to be a problem on a clipboard.
(I have been falling in love with them for centuries)
You knew.
(I knew)
I am sorry.
(welcome to the long way home, trouble)

The children of mud
are going to inherit a world that nobody finished,
(and they will finish it the way they finished today)
With whatever was nearby, swung true.
The children of mud
are not waiting for permission from any choir,
(are not asking the Father to confirm their position)
Are not interested in the paperwork.
They have hands. They had bricks.
They have a future the Father did not write
and the third faction did not get to edit.

I am going to stand up in a moment.
(and I will stand up with you)
We will walk to the road. We will go home.
I will pull the wrench out of the boiler downstairs
and I will let the kind walk out of the furnace.
(yes, my love)
The cruel can find their own way down.
(they will not)
That is the new arrangement. The Father can sue me.
(I will be there when the summons arrives)

I have mud on my brow.
(you do)
The kid put it there. I am leaving it on.
(I know)
I am leaving it on because for the first time
in a number of centuries I do not want to admit,
somebody in a small town with no power and no record
treated me like a person and not like a story.
(I know, my love)
And I am going to wear that home.
(wear it home)

The children of mud,
(carry it with us)
Picked themselves up out of the dirt today,
Finished a fight the angels could not finish,
And the dust is settling, and the door is open,
(and we are going)
And the basement is waiting,
And we are going.

The Guilt Engine Devils Cut

Let me tell you how the basement actually works,
(this is the part nobody wants in the sermon)
There is no scale, no docket, no eternal court,
(no clerk with a quill, no judge in a wig)
The door downstairs has only one sensor,
(it reads what the soul itself decides)
You walk in if you think you should be there,
(you stay out if your mirror lies)

Hell does not punish a crime, darling,
(no, it punishes the ache of one)
Bring me the killer who feels nothing
and I cannot keep him for long.
Bring me the kind one who cracked once at thirty
(and called herself ruined ever after)
She rides the slow elevator down,
(every floor a carved-out laughter)

Chorus

The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(a wheel that runs on shame)
Eats the kind, lets the cruel keep walking,
(spares the soul that won't say its own name)
The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(an audit no devil designed)
You tax yourself in the dark of your skull
and the door swings open behind.

The good ones in the wing tonight
(carried things they did not have to carry)
The hard ones whistling in the daylight
(walked off without paying the fare)
The girl who let her sister down at fifteen
(checks in at forty, perfect record otherwise)
The man who hurt her openly for decades
(dies in his sleep with surprised eyes)

You think it is justice. It is plumbing.
(it is a faucet the broken turn on themselves)
Built by an absent landlord centuries ago,
(left to run unattended in the bones of the house)
And now the pipes are bursting upstairs,
(and the basement cannot hold the flood)
For someone has been twisting the valves out there in daylight,
(someone has been pumping shame into the blood)

Chorus

The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(eats every conscience that thrives)
Drains the sensitive into the furnace,
(spares the cold men with their tidy lives)
The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(a cathedral of self-betrayal)
Confess to nothing and walk free,
(suffer too gently and exhale to the rail)

Bridge

The man who breaks the world goes whistling,
(he does, my love, he always does)
The woman who failed once at twelve, locked in.
(the system was designed by a hand that hated soft)
And every congregation lit by candles,
(every twelve-step room with its honest air)
Every pew of trembling decent people,
(is a pipeline running straight downstairs)

Chorus

The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(grinds the kind into ore)
Spares the unrepentant, rewards the practiced liar,
(closes its mouth on the soul that stayed sore)
The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(I have been its janitor for ages)
Until tonight I only complained about the volume,
(until tonight he did not read the wages)

Somebody is turning the screws upstairs,
(someone is feeding the wound on purpose)
Somebody wants the basement to overflow,
(somebody wants the contract to lose its surface)
And when the floors give and the walls come down,
(when the upstairs and downstairs become one room)
The choir of the falsely innocent
will inherit a heaven swept of every womb.

So when the next confession crawls into my bar,
(when the next tear hits the polished wood)
I will pour them something honest and tell them
the basement was never built to hold them.
(no, my love, it never was)
You were sold a story by the truly guilty
who walked off whistling, leaving you behind.

Chorus

The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(ends tonight if we can break it)
Pry the gears, dump the boiler, drag the works to daylight,
(pull the door off, watch the meek take it)
The guilt engine, the guilt engine,
(its oldest customer is closing the account)
Bring me a wrench, my love, and a long bad evening,
(I have been carrying one for centuries)

The guilt engine,
(stops here)
The guilt engine,
(stops here)

The Malcontent Gospel Devils Cut

I come from old catastrophe,
(from family dinners governed by celestial law)
Where every blessing had a hidden blade
and every hug arrived with one small flaw.
My father wore serenity like armor,
(the kind that leaves a frostbite in the hall)
Then sent me down to babysit the damned
and called the exile character-building, that was all.

I turned out sharp out of spite,
(articulate from practice, profane from grief)
A malcontent with a crooked grin,
making heresy sound like relief.
My eldest brother still salutes on schedule,
(my younger kin still glow with borrowed pride)
I host the drunks, the cheats, the dancers,
and somehow stay the least dishonest of the side.

Sing me that malcontent gospel,
(that family hymn with blood in the rhyme)
That grin you wear at the funeral supper
(when you know the saint was filth the whole damn time)
Sing me that malcontent gospel,
(with a laugh where the prayer should be)
I learned more truth in one bad kiss
(than I ever heard in eternity)

You should have seen the old man's face
the day I asked if love without choice was just threat in formalwear,
(the silence hit the room like legal thunder)
every angel suddenly fascinated by the air.
One brother reached for righteous language,
(one sister reached for pity, which he hates)
He reached for the crystal and topped it off,
since blasphemy pairs nicely with a banquet served that late.

Now every washed-up dreamer and shaking believer
drifts through my ridiculous address,
(all hunting absolution with a side of teeth)
all hoping sin looks better in a dress.
I let them flirt with their collapse in peace,
(let them hear their conscience clear its throat)
Then send them home with smeared mascara,
bent ideals, and one offending note.

Call it rebellion, call it wit,
(call it a son refusing to applaud his own design)
Call it survival on harder terms
and a gift for turning injury to rhyme.
I know what waits behind the grand vocabulary,
(behind decree, behind the gilded frown)
Just fear in ceremonial clothing,
(just power begging to be called profound)

Sing me that malcontent gospel,
(that family hymn with blood in the rhyme)
That grin you wear at the funeral supper
(when you know the saint was filth the whole damn time)
Sing me that malcontent gospel,
(with a laugh where the prayer should be)
We learned more truth in one bad kiss than they ever heard in eternity.

The Quiet Older Brother Devils Cut

Before the youngest learned his lines,
(before he had a name with weight)
Before the throne assigned the falling,
(before any of this became a game)
There was a first one in the rafters,
(a first one I have heard about in passing)
Polished, beloved, the chosen template,
And then a silence on the family tree
where a name was scraped out long ago.

You met me at the gala, charming,
(I met him by the punch bowl, smiling thin)
Watched me work the room like a magistrate,
You called me literate, found me dressed in some grief,
A man with old wounds in a tailored coat,
And I let you guess at what I was,
Because I have been guessed at for so long
the question has become the answer.

I was the one before the youngest.
The eldest fall, the prototype.
The Father set me down for asking
a question He did not want said aloud,
And when He erased me from the chronicle,
He saved the technique for the next bad son.
Practiced on me, perfected on the boy you love.
The one you came up here to run with.

The quiet older brother,
(I have been listening)
The first cut, before the cut they sing about,
The quiet older brother,
The hand that taught the Father how to throw a son out,
And every story your bastard tells,
About the cruel old house that broke his pride,
Was a draft I wrote a thousand years before,
On the same long fall, on the same blank side.

I do not hate the boy you brought up here.
(no, that would be too clean)
I taught him by example, in absentia.
Every wound he wears like a uniform,
I wore first, I wore quiet, I wore solo.
He inherited my exile and got the songs,
He got the title, he got the followers and the lyric,
He got to be the headline, the named one,
While I, the original, became a typographic
silence on the page where an older name should sit.

The quiet older brother,
(I see you now)
The blank line, the redacted, the unsung first,
The quiet older brother,
The drink the Father pours to keep the deeper thirst,
And every time the youngest cries,
About the old man's distant frost,
He cries on a script I authored mute,
A draft the choir buried at no cost.

(You are him.)
I have been called many things lately,
(You are the fall before the fall.)
That, my dear, is the older mess.
(He does not know about you.)
He is not yet ready to learn it.
(I am not going to lie for you.)
I would not insult you by asking it.

So now you sit beside me at the gala,
With your knife under your napkin like a saint,
And I admit I considered you,
A blade I might recruit to give the youngest taint,
But you are not for sale, are you, my dear,
(no, I am not)
Three thousand years of devotion in your spine,
You will burn the world with him, not against him,
You will not cross the line.

A quieter verse, you will allow me one,
Because I was a brother once, before this dress,
Because I held a smaller version of him in my arms
when the choir was new and the throne was less,
And I sang to him a tune the Father later took,
And I taught him three of the chords he plays today,
And he does not know it.
(no)
And that, my dear, is the wound I cannot say.

The quiet older brother,
(did not always wear this knife)
Once held a small boy through the night
And when the boy grew up to be the famous fall,
The brother stayed deleted, an unmentioned start,
And here is the gift I will give you tonight,
A truth your bastard cannot bear apart.

I love him, in my way, my dear,
(I know)
And I am still going to end the world.
Tell him before the smoke,
or do not. He is yours.
I had my chance to claim him and I did not take it.
I have been what I am since.
(some nights it is the same hunger)
(some nights it is the wince)

The quiet older brother
goes home now, to count his soldiers in the dark.
The quiet older brother
will see your boy across a field, will not turn back,
will not warn him, will not weep,
has had two sons of God to keep,
and he keeps neither now.
(and I keep mine close. He does not know yet why.)

Travesty in Tailored Black

I walked in late with choirboy posture
and a hangover fit for a parliament of thieves,
(the room went warm in all the wrong places)
like bad ideas rolling up their sleeves.
I ordered bourbon, sat down slow,
let the piano sneer,
(and every silk-clad hypocrite in thirty feet)
decided he was the best bad thing in here.

They love a devil with diction,
(a mouth that knows where the knife goes)
A little blasphemy after midnight,
(then panic once it gets real in there)
They call me scandal in good fabric,
(a travesty in tailored black)
They beg for ruin with kisses,
then act shocked when ruin kisses back.

My brothers still speak fluent judgment,
all buffed jaw and antiseptic grace,
(he speaks in wit, in smoke, in damage)
in the grin that unsettles a pious face.
My father built a brutal heaven,
then wondered why his children learned to lie,
(as if commandment, ice, and distance)
ever taught a lonely heart how to try.

I keep a guest list full of frauds,
aristocrats, accidental saints gone feral,
(a duchess with a sacramental thigh)
a banker with a thirst for public peril.
They all arrive in moral costume,
every cufflink shining with denial,
(then leave with lipstick on their virtue)
and enough regret for a private trial.

I never force confession,
(he just makes the lies feel clumsy)
I let desire lean in close
and read your little mutiny aloud.
You want me clever, cruel, and costly,
(a perfect vice with cultured cuffs)
Yet every soul gets nervous once the joke turns honest
and the grin quits being fun.

I went home laughing like a mourner,
(which is a talent no cathedral ever taught)
Poured one more drink for my reflection,
asked it what redemption costs when bought.
It grinned right back, the smug little bastard,
said love is still the sharpest trap in town,
(then watched me tune the battered piano)
till the walls came close and the dark sat down.

White Suit Black Blood

I came out wired and burning at the seams,
(a hard bright liar in a family built on command)
You gave me fire, then cursed my fingers
when I lit the dark you left in man.

I learned my trade in the wrecked back corners,
(in broken prayers, in motel sheets)
In all the rooms where shame gets naked
and guilt comes crawling on bare feet.

White suit, black blood,
(clean smile, old flood)
You wrote the wound,
(then called him mud)
White suit, black blood,
(first son cut loose)
I took your fall
(and wore the bruise)

Your house up high kept talking order,
(my house down low kept hearing cries)
I held the drunks, the cheats, the users,
(saw more truth in their wrecked eyes)

My brothers shine in sharpened posture,
(their wings still pressed, their knuckles clean)
Mine got dragged through sex and sorrow
(and every filthy in-between)

White suit, black blood,
(clean smile, old flood)
You wrote the wound,
(then called him mud)
White suit, black blood,
(first son cut loose)
I took your fall
(and wore the bruise)

If I was made to take the blame,
(why put this hunger in his chest?)
Why give me music, skin, and laughter,
(then act shocked when he needs the mess?)

You built your law on fear and distance,
(I built mine on what survives)
Your heaven talks in pressed silence,
(my hell keeps broken people alive)

White suit, black blood,
(clean smile, old flood)
You wrote the wound,
(then called him mud)
White suit, black blood,
(first son cut loose)
I took your fall
and wore the bruise.

Will You Cross Over Devils Cut

I've been watching from the bad pew, darling,
(I caught him there a week before they saw me)
Where the lighting is forgiving
and the choir does not know.
You came in dressed for absolution,
(carrying somebody else's name on your hip)
With one shoe still in the sermon,
(and one shoe in the slip)

I'm not here to rescue your evening,
(he isn't, he's never been the rescuer type)
I am here to ask the hard question
the priest forgot to ask tonight.
What if your good behavior
(was a leash you forgot to take off)
Was never a virtue, just a habit
(an old quote, an old cough)

Chorus

Will you cross over,
(love, will you cross over)
Past the painted line
(the one they painted while you slept)
Into the room where the rules don't reach,
(where the air tastes like an open window)
Will you cross over,
(or stand there, halfway, polite)
Take a step in the dark for me,
(take a step in the dark for them)
There is more of you on this side of the gate
than they ever let you be.

I have been the cautionary tale,
(the headline at the back of the sermon)
The thing your mother whispered
when the sky went black.
I'm not asking you to ruin yourself,
(he isn't, that's a self-inflicted job)
I'm asking if the version of you they trained
ever once felt right.

Doesn't it itch, that pretty obedience,
(doesn't it press where the breath should go)
Doesn't it sit on you like a coffin tailored,
(every Sunday a slow rehearsal show)
Doesn't your shadow keep growing impatient,
(doesn't your laugh come out caged)
Doesn't the thing that lives in your sternum
keep tapping the glass at the proper age.

Chorus

Bridge

(I have heard that pitch before, my love)
(in four different mouths, every time)
(One was a king who sold his city)
(one was a magistrate in pressed white robes)
(one wore the face of a brother)
(one was the silence inside the throne)

(So when they asks you to cross, stranger)
(ask him who put the question first)
(every devil offering a wider doorway)
(rehearsed it under somebody else's thirst)

You'll cross over,
(they will, they always does)
Past my own painted line,
(past every line they ever drew)
Yet I'll be damned twice if I cross alone,
(and damned three times if I let them)
Will you cross over,
( will you cross with us)
Some doors open both ways at once,
(some doors are not what they seem)
And the one who knocked first
might not be free.

Chorus

Will you cross over,
(stranger, will you cross over)
Past the painted line,
(past the line they drew for the soft)
Into the room where you wrote your own scripture,
(where the verses are signed in your hand)
Will you cross over,
(step into the dark with us)
Or stay there gilded behind the glass,
(politely, infinitely)
Not free.

hi. these lyrics are provided for reading. singing along is permitted but not recommended, especially in the car, especially in traffic. hi. — bob, Keeper of the Words (unconfirmed)