Benefits Administration Meeting

The valve was non-existant.
Satisfaction is quite distant.
My broken cells crawl away from you.

The screams need to emanate,
but surely it will be too late
for any fucking blood to boil through.

I'll go away at Big Brother's choice
and try to remember my own voice.
The ripping wounds will reproduce on steel.

I'll touch the wretched, stinging heat.
The rubber will burn under my feet.
I'll shake my chords until they cannot feel.

My Music Maker

What if he wakes up?
Where does that leave me?
A physiological explanation defying any deeper exploration of who's just ceased to be.
A stream of consciousness to be cast away, to begin another boring day that will go on and on without me.

After all it's a sin I commit almost every day.
I do whatever's necessary to get rid of all I saw.
Would I simply join the thoughts & delusions, take on the lives of myths and illusions as they fall away with a breath of new clean air?
Would I fall & falter off the edge of the altar; shall I disappear forever, would that be fair?

I've seen myself unable to get my sister to karate.
I once carried my mother's corpse around a department store.
These are the things I do when I'm asleep until I wake in fright and start to weep for fear that soon these sights could all be true.
So now I have to ask the question, scared to death to learn the lesson; am I just this happening to you?

Flowers of Babel

You tried to be a part of evolutionary progress
denying that it's just a reactionary process.
Building better versions of a more perfect you,
wishing that the demons couldn't keep on coming through.

But you're still the same disgusting mass of sins & effigies
stealing will from addicts and self-esteem from refugees.
The hatred still sticks right to you in places you brought love,
the apathy & anger fitting like a nice, warm glove.

The voices you emit shed not light for all to see,
the echoes & the ripples breaking down what made them free.
You scream at these realizations, knowing there's little time left for you to hate her.
There's just enough to recall this, forget the freak, you're just nature.*

Stone Sour, "Omega" ('Stone Sour', 2002)

Carnivorous Decisions

I speak to you in times of regret
but all you want is someone to come pay your debts.
The mechanical changes take place without force
but my brain & my body have entered divorce.

These confessions of mine should relieve all the pain
but they still do nothing to treat the stain.
The breaking of bones meets the mending of fences
but you are unwise to lower your defenses.

Wings of tattered veins reach out to envelop
but they will refuse to let you develop.
The scorching of skin is a sure vital sign
but the anguish comes from intelligent design.

I'm leaving this earth broken & marred
but you will be the one wearing my scars.
The jaws of the maker could swallow us whole
but I will not die without taking your soul.

This, Too, Shall Pass

These broken flowers fall from the stones upon which they were laid.
These broken people return to the one that had them made.
These broken letters fail to reach the inhabitants of the tomb.
These broken souls come screaming once again from the womb.

These little tendencies claiming the addict and his hands.
These little words are feelings, thoughts, emotions he withstands.
These little shakes, they make him focus on what he had left behind.
These little bites, they take his energy when he needs his teeth to grind.

These ended wars leave the dead in their wake.
These ended tours become distorted and fake.
These ended lives settle down on the shore.
These ended scenes leave us begging for more.

A Fever Persists

Mapped by SlipKnoT's "The Blister Exists", Volume 3: The Subliminal Verses (2004)

Taking whatever for the necessary funds.
Absorbing, archaic, like a sponge.*
Swallowing down & choking them out.
Pounding out every single inch of doubt.

Raping gray matter from within its walls.
Chewing the debris of every scrap that falls.
Killing the cells one fiber at a time.
Listing the temptations leading to the crime.

Let it fade, let it go dry.
Distinguish life from death by watching blood fly and stain it all.
Destroy my needs and all I've built.
Just kill me slowly enough that I can see what I'm leaving behind.

Always in Surveillance

And she walked there with a purpose
full of vinegar, piss and myopic as hell.
And she stood there justifying
the beautiful, fragile empty shell.

And she moved on daily, never ceasing
to forget what she was always forced to learn.
But she stayed there, still retreating
knowing at some point it would all have to burn.

And she lingered in the senses & nostrils
of all those she passed by each day.
But she never had a clue how lucky they felt
when they saw her coming their way.