1. |
SLPWLKR
03:06
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A lesson learned: When I open my mouth, my lips move but then nothing comes out. I'm better off being shy and unrecognized.
A lesson learned: So sick of selling myself and I can tell you wish you were somewhere else. Hey, I get it, you're bored. I'd be bored too.
But my shield stays high. I can't let you take that away.
Because this is mine: this aimless dread. This wave of doubt I'm drowning in. This bag of skin surrounding me, where I'm a stranger to myself and a stranger to you too.
I am a hollow man. I'm just a crater. I'm just an extra in someone else's life. I long for clarity and I grasp for purpose but isolation pries my fingers apart.
So I'm sleepwalking. I won't let you take that away.
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2. |
Old Haunt
04:40
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I used to love to drive around this town. To watch their blood come up on Friday at dusk with the windows down. But beneath the waves of the Mighty James it just washed away. I used to love but I won't try again.
I said you'd have to drag me from here. Kicking and screaming, hiding in the drywall. But when the walls all fall down, you'll see the skeleton of this town, bones bleached white. Avert your eyes from the flaws left behind. I tried. I tried. When the walls all fall down, you'll see the skeleton of this town.
Now everything I loved is just a fiction in its place from the crest of Church Hill to Hollywood Cemetery's gates. I'll take a quick walk for one last glance at the falls. I used to love, now I gotta go.
But I won't try. Can't convince anyone that I'm right. I leave dragging chains of expected refrains. Don't pity me. I set this curse on myself. Old haunts. These sirens of mine sing of easier times. And when I feel the pang of the weight in her name, I'll turn my red eyes to the sky. But I won't try again.
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3. |
The Call
03:51
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It gets dark again. My only friend calls out my name. Echoes inside of me as a child recoil in shame. I recognize I could be saved, but I don't mind. My fuse is lit. My charge is armed. I've given up.
So I fall back down into the holes from which I sprouted and buy myself some friends 'til last call. The shit swept up includes my ragged bones and I stumble my way back home, where I close my eyes, drift off to sleep and then, when tomorrow comes, I'll do it all again.
Can't stand the quiet and introspection is self-abuse so I'm seeking out somewhere dark and loud to sit and brood. I'll gather moss and slowly rot but I don't mind. I'll see it through. I'm learning to resent your youth.
If tomorrow comes, I'll take the call again.
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4. |
Equinox
03:00
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5. |
X'd Out
02:31
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I'm so bored with this bullshit. These fake friendships that only drift and drift. So forget my love, forget my face. Burn everything that bears my name.
Erase this decade. Erase my name.
And if time should wash the salt from me, we'll see how deep the wounds have grown to be. Coward that I am won't cut you loose. I'll leave the door cracked for you.
Erase this decade. Erase my name.
Decayed. Erased. X'd out.
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6. |
Orb Weaver
05:26
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Guide my primary eyes to the absence and retreating of light. Left a lifeline behind, out of sight but not out of mind. I cling so desperately. A chasm yawns just below my feet, where your soul used to be. I'm lost in a tangled web you weaved.
I trace each strand to its source and relive each one of our wars before the next hunt begins. Down below, the web is unraveling.
You've made a monster of me. The guilt, it's overwhelming, just the same as my grief. I can't find my grip and I fall.
Fall.
Fall.
Fall through this cavern of eyes. They see my each misstep and pass judgment in silence.
You cut my supports and left me to the wind. This doesn't somehow become my fault just because I reacted poorly to it. I'll give up my webs if you'll give up your wings, but I won't be holding my breath as the ground races up to meet me from below.
Fuck.
Crawl into the light. Crawl into the light. I could forgive you, but you'd have to try. Perhaps I could rest if I just had the why. If you'd crawl into the light.
Predator, prey, they're all one and the same.
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7. |
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The rot has set and we're all better off because of it. That's what we're led to believe. But I can't. The scalpel growing nearer every day. Sometimes that's all I can see. Still I try to evade these fantasies of guillotines. I know that's all that they are. Because facts lost. Facts are never what they seem to be. It's time to prep the O.R..
First, do no harm.
But then keep trying to convince yourself that all of this is normal. That's easier to believe. And keep waiting for some shining light to lead us out of darkness like lemmings into the sea between reason and insanity.
'Cause our goal is your recovery, Mr. Smith, so please stop trying to fight. Sometimes the patient doesn't even know he's sick. New treatments, then, are required.
Too long this cancer has been ignored.
We are, and have always been, at war.
I know we could end you. I know we could make you hurt. But I don't dare to believe.
I can't see a light beyond these blackest days.
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8. |
Asterisk
03:50
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In a rare motionless evening, in a creeping malaise, in heat that sticks to the trash on the sidewalk, I wandered into a haze, alone. Would you let me take you down with me?
Out of the ashes of endings, into the flames of rebirth. We live through this one last beating, and through it all we have learned:
Pain is eternal. Joy is fleeting. Seize it while you still can.
We marched through fire and emerged unburnt while you selfish pricks talked shit. You failed, failed, failed. You wanted to see us destroyed, but we march on. Past all the bruises that you dwell on. The cross upon a cross. Oh, how I wish you'd get off it and go live alone with your loss.
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9. |
Solstice
03:32
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10. |
Copstomp
03:19
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Must we endure this daily peeling of scabs? Revealing festering sores on me, and you, and every American fuckwit naïve enough to believe this could heal on its own. It's by design. We're being numbed to this bullshit.
I can't breathe.
Somehow you fascists speak louder than words. You've cuffed us to the seats for a rough ride. And I've died so many times watching your shit-eating grin as you sail past the point of this, thumbs in your ears to drown out black voices.
Every morning the news is a rerun. I can't go on watching but I will not turn away. But you? You live for this. So calm and obedient. You'd justify anything to please your true masters. You're a slave. You're being used. You don't know, or don't care. You fucking nazi.
I've died so many times watching your shit-eating grin as you wave to the cameras and rise for the flag in comfort and willful oblivion. Cover your eyes as the bodies pile up.
Kneel. The blade approaches, cowards.
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11. |
Widowed
03:20
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I went to bed with a dead man.
I followed the sound of his beating heart down into the furthest reach of a dreamless sleep. Into nothingness. From waveless seas to raging streams it came rushing in. Watch with your heart. Run with your gut. Careful not to lose your resolve.
Alcohol superhero leaping from tar-covered rooftops (with abandon). Incurious about his curse/gift of flight, and what it means to survive this next meaningless fight. The city is quiet. Empty.
So I guess this is goodnight.
This slow-motion suicide.
I know why we forget our dreams. There's no truth which will set me free. I'm bargaining and denying but I cannot accept this.
There's a place where no one knows the poisoned, futile life I lead. I don't live there anymore. Where nothing hurt and I'm just fine. I don't live there anymore. Oh, god damn it. God damn it. God damn it. God damn it.
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12. |
It Gazes Back
04:33
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Bad dreams or no sleep: the two paths before me as I push past these empty endings. There's nothing to reconcile. You'll be ashes soon. In spite of everything, all the wreckage we left, I loved you.
Wish we could start this over.
Man and son.
But I'm lost in the alarm fatigue. And I'm lost in thought.
Wish we could start this over.
I can't tell you what I see in the shattered mirrors of his eyes. I just know this isn't me, what's staring back at me.
Wish we could start this over. We tried our best. Cherish the hard-fought kind memories. Fuck all the rest.
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End You Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
END YOU is the solo project of Philly-based screamer Eric Smith (ex-The Catalyst). The debut full length, AIMLESS DREAD, recorded over the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, will be out in early 2021.
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