OF VIRTUE LYRICS

1. An Absence Of Clarity

[Instrumental]

2. Damaged

Silence in solitude.
What have I made of myself?
What have I become?
I am ashamed, behind it all I am desperate.
I am afraid in every step that I might take.
I have finally seen this beast step into the light.
And I am fully disgusted at the very sight.
This is not who I am.
I am so much greater.
This is not who I am.
I am so much more.
I am just a broken down man.
Hoping to fix what I have ruined, the people I love and the love I killed.
I see this bridge in the distance.
That very first step might very well be the hardest thing in my life...
and I have to live like this every single day.
I have to live with the same face.
I have to hear the same name.
I have yet to come to terms.
I am damaged.
I have to live like this, broken, and desperate.
Behind it all I have yet to come to terms.
I am just a broken down man.
Hoping to fix what I have ruined, the people I love and the love I killed.
I am better than this.

3. Comfort Runs Thin

I've never felt so unwanted, not like this.
It's not your fault you were born with this ugly face, this faded out name that everyone turns away.
They can't see past the mistakes or the everything you lack.
In your eyes I cease to exist.
You'll never have to see this face again.
You'll never have to learn my name again.
It kills to know you've been forgotten, you've been left behind.
I let my guard down, my heart fell out.
I heard a voice in my head ring,
"welcome to this pretty world and its ugly side, where comfort is the ghost."
How could you?
How could you do this to me without a warning?
I cared about you but you never cared for me.
How could you do this to me, a stagnant memory?
Once I find my way to the top I'll be looking down on you,
Just like you did me.
Maybe one day you'll learn...
Won't let this guard down and get pushed away again.
You've all solidified that love and friendship comes with its press and I'm paying for it now.
So this is what it costs for comfort and safety?
I stand alone, left behind, unwanted by people i thought cared for me.
I stand alone, taking steps to find the people that matter most in life
(those people worth breaking your back for).
Do you feel a cold breeze?
Do you see the leaves fall?
I feel another year end and i feel another friend gone.
I feel a cold breeze.
I see these leaves fall.
I feel another year end and another friend gone.
Just know...
Once I find my way to the top I'll be reaching for the stars and not for you.
As human beings we need a constant to balance out the fade.
Something more than just a face in the passing clouds.
Maybe one day we'll both see the same way.
Maybe one day we'll both see eye to eye.

4. The Gypsy

By arm and leg the best of us gets dragged away, at an early age.
Some more fortunate than others.
Like a rag doll, you keep me close to your heart.
But only when you need to feel safe.
Liken a god who seems to be here, until a tragedy strikes then he disappears.
It was so hard to witness.
Like a sharp pain in my stomach, consuming everything but hate on the inside.
Is it not true that a heart sinks, when you let it fall?
You let this one fall and there's no one left to blame.
A thief without a face
(you wonder why we've grown so far apart).
Miles away, you stay strangled up in your ways just begging for change.
300 miles north of the state you strayed away, just to find yourself
Miles away right where you lay.
While your blood is running out of my veins and onto the streets, just flooding all the drains.
And as I dwell on the past I look down and see the red on my hands once again.
Stay miles away, miles away, right where you lay.
You've disappeared once again.
The truth is it's hard to look in your eyes when I see you,
You've made it harder by the day, since July, 1990.
The gyspy's one her way to find her fairytale ending.
My god, there's no such thing.
How much is enough?
Tell me what is enough?
Is this what it's like to lose a maker?
Is this what it's like?

5. No Light

As I stand amidst this fire, burning alive
from this guilt and this shame
and yet I have done nothing
but slowly feed myself to the flames.
It feels too late to try and find beauty in this flesh of mine
I have no faith in dreams, belief in anything.
As the hours and the days go by,
I reach out for a hope that never comes.
Now the Love that once was shared has been washed up on
the shorelines of torn sons and daughters.
This is a natural disaster.
Gasping for every breath of air,
it has all become so clear to me.
This pain is real, this fear is all too real.

6. Isolation

Floating endlessly through the wavering radiance
to a sun so long forgotten, I need the warmth.
As I wait to find Babylon, I dream to reach out,
to oscillate and find my God or this fleeting
notion of peace. It wont be long until we can
regain whats left of ourselves. Hand in hand, we
can be set free from the chains that have bound us
for so long.

7. The Passerby

If this picture's worth a thousand words let "love" not be the first nor last.
My eyes were upside down the first time you turned your back.
I wish you never turned your back around after that.
Cover up that word, like you cover up your face when you have something to say.
Anything to cover up my efforts.
Anything to shut me out.
Bury those eyes into the bend of your arm.
Keep those ribs closed and your heart hidden away from me.
I've been wondering what swallowed me into the ocean hidden behind a pretty voice,
Whispering promises of warmth.
It's not the salt that makes my eyes water.
It's the thought that you never even bothered to give me a reason behind letting go of everything I tried to give.
I don't know what hurts more, hanging on by a thread or just letting go.
We'll never know.
It's a constant struggle trying to fill the void that loved one made.
And when they're gone it seems no one could ever take their place.
You can't just let them go or leave them behind.
We once knew love,
Until someone you think is gonna be the one to change your life...for the best,
Throws you out into the streets with an empty, frozen hands and feet.
Still standing here.
Cut off the loss, clean the wounds, granted nothing will ever feel the same again.
It was all worth nothing.
"I'm a loner," he says.
"Born this way a loner I shall stay."
Cursed with heartstrings hanging from his hands and neck.
"Dance with me," she says.
"To the melodies of weeping widows and widowers.
'Cause tonight we die alone, just like them."
Like a beaten down, dog it's hard to show love.
So he shows his teeth instead and spits out blood to anyone that shows him love again.
But when no one's around he whimpers through the night and walks around with his tail between his legs.
And then you hear him speak,
"I would have given you the clothes off my back, choose a bullet over seeing your blood spill, perhaps.
But now I'm cold and there's a hole through my chest. A public display of my affection."

8. Dead Man

When you're stuck right under the thumb of the devil it's hard to make the choice to live or die.
Or just stay stuck right bettween where the sunset's and where the whiskey collides.
A place where the only clothes on your back smell of sewer heat and sweat.
And your cold dry face is caked in dirt and grease.
It's getting colder outside and you start to believe it might never change the cold city streets,
These cold city night,
This cold city heart.
We're a generation of young men and women struggling to get the best we can.
Trying to outlive the failures of the past, dying to make a change that you can truly see.
Living for the moment when feeling right doesn't seem so impossible,
but the harder you push it only hurts worse when you fall again.'
Just let it be known that when the sky turns grey, you tried your best.
Just never tried hard enough to believe it.
Most of the time there's nothing we can do to change the ways our days have tangled
themselves up in the fence and vines, that we hide behind.
We stress and frustrate the sunlight away, by the time night falls we lay awake and ache,
for tomorrow destiny might show its face.
For the first time in my life.
Although we have lost ourselves along the way,
The stars above the sea will guide us home.
It's being born the only one with eyes, the rest of the world is blind.
But then you realize you have nothing to hide.
It's like having wings preparing to fly out of this shit that we call our lives.
But then you realize you're afraid of heights.
Dead man live again.

9. Soul Searcher

Was it ever in the back of your mind that once you brought this life into the world,
You could show him how to love something not of his own blood.
"Mother, where have you gone? And father, where have you been? I see too much of myself in you."
Well, now he's all alone and as much as you'd hate to admit you're one to blame.
The truth stands still as you run away.
this ugliness is building up walls that true beauty in life has yet to tear down.
This disease has control, it's a stronghold and the cure is staring us right in the eyes,
with a smile on it's face.
With a smile on its face, and the intentions of a snake, and the confidence of a rat.
Take me to a place called home, a place where I feel right about being alone.
Take me home.
All I know is that there is hope here buried under the sins, regrets that we've been sinking in.
Making ourselves out to be some bastard child.
I heard your footsteps get quieter in the distance.
but when I turned around, all i saw was a blanket of untouched snow.
No where found.
Take me to a place called home, a place where I finally feel alive.
We live our lives alone, but alone we are together.

10. A Sign From Above

[Instrumental]

11. Depth Of Desperation

Are these tears of joy or just the rain of another storm beating on my face?
I just don't know anymore.
Just let it be, let in the pain of being human.
Just let it be, let in the fear of never knowing.
Just let it go, these manufactured ideals of life and death.
So as i crawl bloody knee by knee, to my new home, there's no chance in hell I'll ever look back.
I'll never look back.
Tossed over the side, hands and feet tied.
Into the depths of desperation, where my demons await to tear me up.
Lest I let the sea fill my lungs with cowardice and grief.
I'm an open book with a heart on its sleeve.
Left with no one who ever cared enough to read the whole story.
Tossed over the side, hands and feet tied.
This is the end of me and the start of who I've become.
The harsh reality is slowly sinking in.
And it's never felt so poisonous.
It's slowly sinking in.
I will always remember what you said,
"Sometimes you have to believe in something more than yourself."
I'll always remember.
Not facing the truth is as deceiving as turning your back on all the lies,
that you've made up in your head.
Is this what they call life?
I'll always remember what you said.
But father it's getting harder to hear your voice in my crowded up head,
filled with sin and the struggle of sacrifice that I have you to defeat.
A life long battle of reaching a piece of mind with no choice to retreat.
I keep seeing myself 10 years from now,
still yet a young man with a reflection that I have only seen in my old man.
50 years of stress and pain.
I cannot live like this.
We will not die like this, let the grass and dirt cover up my name.
I cannot live like this.
My god, this is only earth.
My god.





OF VIRTUE LYRICS