No Breadcrumbs

I can always count on myself to forget every pain that I have felt

All I have to do is blink or breathe to know that they are gone

Fleeing like a fog gone wrong, held beneath the summer sun

To find that I’m a drowning man and the currents are siren songs.

They play a simple tune, you see, a pulse within a fatal chord

They fade into every child’s recess like this sad song that’s at its end

I suppose I should be thankful, I should say it now before

I have the chance to forget my life and am forced to play pretend.

For there lies a certain irony in every lie I’m forced to tell

Never once a thing of malice but the wishes of a common man

That I might grow just once from pain, like forest fire trees that have been felled

That I could feel just one embrace, something more forgiving than Sahara sands.

But this is who I am, I guess, and dry earth is who I’ll be

Until all songs have ended and I’m forced to wonder what went wrong

I wonder who I might’ve been, had I some stark memories of every loss

I wonder if I might’ve stood a chance, had I marked the only path I’ve ever been on.

Instead now I’m lost in the forest, in the trees behind my house

And here I stand in the darkness where every porch light has burned out

And I wonder where the bread has gone and why there are so many crows

Standing on my shoulders, burning black like the shadows, of a life that’s gone down like the sun.