Commence to Begin

Dear god please grant me sweet nepenthe
As the sinners in outrage cry out “Repent, ye”
“Little of faith, less of heart and soul,”
“What blasphemy you utter, you do not know.”
And yes this began in medias res
If this midlife is my half-life I'm less than blessed
This is where your aimless faith will get you
Unanswerable questions do not beget truth
But this is all a ruse I'm sure you'll see through
Fuck these bitches and let that money accrue
If we're lost when we die I'd rather not cry at rain
This total perspective vortex will destroy your brain.

Yo enough stalling, let's commence to begin
This'll be the first track I say the title in -
And the first I assure you, where I'll be direct
At least more than you should've come to expect
Let's go way back when to when all this shit started
Woke to a gray morning, weak and broken-hearted
Rubbed sleep from my eyes but nothing was there
There's no rest for the wicked or so I hear
But the steely gray sky like life past prime
Belied the warm morning that met me outside
And as I breathed deep I knew the sleepless nights
This illusion of time ends with the sunrise.

We're all like Prometheus – we know too much
And try to steal things that are hot to touch
Each little moment like we're thieves of time
Each day we awake to confront our crimes
But there's no eagle coming for our livers
Just one before whom we'll stand and deliver
So count the hours that you lose to sleep
And count the hours that you lose to people
And count the time that you spend on yourself
Does the weight of your soul slowly tip the scale
Or would the weight of the world borne on your shoulders
Look any lighter to another beholder?

Let me ask you, would that balm in Gilead
Finally conclude this unending Iliad
Or must we traverse mountains and valleys of shadows
To find a Pyrrhic victory in these hollow battles?