Mall Fire

It's loud.  So damn loud.  So damn loud
there's nothing left in the mall, but it's not closed out;
But the splitting sensation of sound. 
Clap your palms all over your ears and lobes,
Close your eyes as the flashing lights echo
A fire alarm no one is listening to. 
Keep walking.  Keep talking. 
DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE?
And just keep on shopping?

"Leave.  Leave.  Leave.  Leave,"
Short of breath, it screams and screams
A sun through the hole in the ceiling.
I can feel it in me as more than noise,
An air-conditioned tickle and a choice
To keep cool as I burn, or my blood boils.
I'm running.  They keep walking.
The fire is inside me to take off when I'm ready to fly.
It's sparking and it's shocking.

No one makes a move, no one gives
A shit and yet they still want to live
And yet don't make a move for the exit.
We all cheer when the alarm falls quiet,
We all cheer and cheer and cheer and riot,
But whatever this is I refuse to buy it.
Keep joking.  Keep choking.
How many stores shut their gates to our flaming hands that day?
Just enough to keep us hoping.

Softly Spoken, Hardly Broken

It starts with a bang and ends in silence,
Flashing hints of far-off violence,
And puddles scattering so far apart
I expected to see some fuckin' stars.
But I've got nothing if not a hundred
Drops of rain and distant thunder
Until the day the sun splits the clouds
I will not set foot outside my house,
And on the day the sun splits the clouds
I will not set foot outside my house.

My fluorescent light-bulb tan looks fine,
I keep the sun from my eyes but I'm still blind
And so damn deaf from talking in text
What comes next?  I forget the rest.
I'm left with nothing if not a hundred
Things I shouldn't have left unsaid
So unless I can be loud without making a sound
I will not set foot outside my house.
Oh let me be loud without making a sound
And I will not set foot outside my house.

I made a murder of a suicide,
Offered them help but just let them die.
Funny how I'm the only one still choking
It's too late now to not keep joking
Until all I have is not even a hundred
Corpses of family and my closest friends,
And as long as they promise to stick around
I'll never set foot outside my house again.
As long as they promise to stick around
I'll never set foot outside my house again.