---

Once more I find myself holding the line

Most days I manage by biding my time

But surely this house of cards will soon fall down

When I let myself exhale

Once more I find myself holding that torch

The bitter memories erupt like spores

From the deep parts of me I keep locked tight

How they shudder in the light

I am not who I claim to be

Impersonating so brazenly

Soon you'll see through my plain charade

Foundation crumbling virtue betrayed

Gaze to the fields of the fallen

Countless gone everyone

Cave to the fear and the sonder

And then step up to the stage

I will take the reigns by your command

Holding course by sleight of hand

I've always been a stowaway

So they have claimed

Alone on the coach I am thriving

Discarding the thought

There is someone in my brain

That is driving me

Crashing aground

The road has rent and the rank-and-file run down

Tolling the hounds

The roiling rush of the river rusts my crown

Once more I'm clandestine feigning rapport

When cloak-and-dagger work yields nothing more

Than all the silken threads that have sprung forth

From aristocratic mouths

I am my own greatest enemy

Self-sabotaging effortlessly

Loosen my noose for it's time for me

To step up upon the stage

I will take the reigns by your command

Holding course by sleight of hand

I've always been a stowaway

So they have claimed

Alone on the coach I am thriving

Discarding the thought

There is someone in my brain

That is driving me

This feeling I'm beholden to prevails

It validates my venom when I fail