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lyrics

When the world was young and hearts were free of all the souls it came to me.
A peculiar charge, mine to keep, of the queerest flavour, the strangest...
I forced it down and held my peace and in my heart I harbored it
but in their vessels they live and breath, and on their keepers secrets feed.

I put it under lock and key and keep it down in cellar deep,
but God gave it claws and the teeth to rend the world asunder.
And it rises up, and kicks and screams, a vengeful brute to havoc reek.
But I choke it down and I fill the breech until again with bloody mind it creeps towards the light.

Mender, maker, lover, thief; all of them their secrets keep.
But what good could come of this? What art? What prize? What bliss?
Well, there's solace in the shade it gives and in knowing always where it is,
cause though within its cage it seethes and storms, outside there's peace.

And it haunts the silence in between the words it wishes it had been
but it's violence without or violence within and there's no way around it.
Was it given me to wield? Just to guard? Or a sword? Or a shield?
Or in the hope that I'd lose my grip and that through my teeth it might slip?

Well it's heavy now and it's hard to see which is it and which is me,
cause within the walls, behind the scenes it rules with ever greater reach.
And it nips and gnaws and flesh explores and that is how it grows,
and heaven knows hearts and souls, but this secret's mine alone.

And the missing pieces crowd my throat. Oh! I know something you don't!
And you must see it, but put your trust in me that let it out I won't!
But if some day it should escape, know that I was not me,
and that it split my breast and stole my breath and my tongue possessed it broke free!

credits

from Through the Darkness and the Cold, released November 24, 2016

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Elliot Thomas Edmonton, Alberta

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