(Verse 1) You dressed up surrender like a road that leads to peace Taught them how to lower every standard by degrees Now they’re kneeling in the fallout, calling splinters signs of grace Mistaking every warning for a sacred hiding place But nothing holy lives there, no rebirth inside the mire Just a funeral in progress and a sickness dressed as fire. (Verse 2) You run a house of mirrors where the sleepless learn to kneel Selling off their instincts for a counterfeit ideal They’re clocking into nothing, raising towers made of bone Scrubbing every surface so the rot won’t be shown They swear they found freedom, swear the cage has disappeared While they choke on all the wreckage that they polished and revered. (Chorus) They choose the dream because it doesn’t cut too deep They choose the dark because it lets the demons sleep I only came to tell you that the paradise is smoke And the ones who chase it hardest are the first ones to choke Yeah, they’re swallowing the venom with a smile on their face Letting every living part of them vanish without a trace. (Verse 3) I see them under bar lights, I see them in the street Spending every sunrise just to make the hunger sleep They buried every boundary, gave the crown to appetite But you don’t find salvation dancing naked in the light They call it being honest, I call it giving in A body still in motion with a graveyard under skin. (Bridge) The builder’s going hungry while you feast on borrowed scraps You call yourself a ruler with your kingdom in collapse That road you say you’re taking only bends back where it starts You’re scared to drop the weapon that you keep against your heart You say you’ve reached the peak and there’s no higher place to go But you’re counting stolen minutes in a clock that runs too slow. (Guitar Solo/Instrumental Break) (Verse 4) I’m standing in the wreckage of the creed you handed down Tearing off the masks before they drag another down It’s hard to face the mirror when the mirror doesn’t bend When every comfort you defended was a sentence in the end You say there’s nothing sacred, nothing burning past the breath But I can see the weight you carry underneath your death. (Chorus) They choose the dream because it doesn’t cut too deep They choose the dark because it lets the demons sleep I only came to tell you that the paradise is smoke And the ones who chase it hardest are the first ones to choke Yeah, they’re swallowing the venom with a smile on their face Letting every living part of them vanish without a trace. (Outro) So keep your little midnight, if you need somewhere to hide But don’t pretend the prison isn’t locked from the inside The truth comes like lightning, yeah, it burns before it clears But it’s the last thing still standing when the serpent disappears Yeah, it’s the last thing still standing when the serpent disappears. Let the embers quiet. Let the dawn draw near.
