The Incomplete Fall
The pedestal cracked beneath the weight of a thousand oily lies
I watched the headlines flicker out like fire in the eyes
I lost the key to the executive suite and the driver at the curb
Trading the hollow lecture for a silence quite superb
They stripped the title from the door
and scrubbed the plastic sign
But left the heavy pockets full of everything was mine
A public execution with a blunt and wooden blade
Calculated penance for the fortune that I made
I sit within this leather chair and pour a glass of gin
Counting up the dividends of every golden sin
The descent was just a detour to a private piece of hell
Where the secrets are the only things that I will ever sell
I am falling through the rafters but I never hit the dirt
I am keeping all the profit while I’m faking all the hurt
They took away the status but they didn’t touch the loot
A calculated tumble in a three-piece woolen suit
I see the weeping faces in the grainy black and white
While I am eating oysters in the middle of the night
The board of directors offered up a sacrificial goat
To keep the rotting ship of state a few more years afloat
My reputation is a carcass that I left upon the street
For the vultures in the gallery to tear and then to eat
I don’t feel the heavy pressure of a guilty human heart
I was just the actor playing out a necessary part
They cry for accountability and pray for me to drown
But I am merely lacing up my boots and heading down
To a basement full of servers where the real work is done
Far away from every single person in the sun
The moon arrives to silver all the wreckage of the day
I’m watching all the consequences start to rot away
A disgrace without a bottom and a fall without a floor
I am closing up the curtains and I’m locking up the door
The victims want a tragedy but I am just a joke
Disappearing in a cloud of thick and aromatic smoke
I’ll buy a different identity and find a different hill
While the world is busy swallowing the same and bitter pill
The fall was just a transition to a more secluded state
Safe behind the heavy bars of a tall and iron gate