38th Parallel Album

Hear my cry, my face is numb
Hear my cry, my legs won't run
Hear my cry, I'm ripping at the seems
Hear my cry, if only I could scream
I can taste it, an aching inside
I can taste it, the offspring of pride
I can taste it, I'm drowning in a flood
I can taste it, and it tastes like blood
Chorus
Hear my cry when I call your name
I'd give my life to touch your flame
Breathe in me, I'm free
Hear my cry, I'm deep in debt
Hear my cry, in deep regret
Hear my cry, someone save me from me
Hear my cry, and give me back sanity
Chorus
You have brought me to my knees
And you have danced in all my dreams
You have stepped through time and space
And in my need you kissed my face

Staring at the flames as they dance in red On the corpse of the land there in
the midst are wandering a countless unnamed Walking hand in hand Blind leading
blind aimlessly into the quicksand of time where they sink On the brink of
eternity cold and alone shrink At the festering obscene corruption Hear my
silence in the face of this mass destruction
All rise, abandon your shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes
on the sun Get burned on the inside and turn these tides All rise, abandon your
shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes on the sun Get burned
on the inside
Closed minds ill equipped to deal with this madness Hearts far to hard to
challenge a sadness that draining The soul of a generation Blanketed with tears
are faces of nations into the quicksand of time where they sink On the brink of
eternity cold and alone shrink At the festering obscene corruption Hear my
silence in the face of this mass destruction
All rise, abandon your shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes
on the sun Get burned on the inside and turn these tides All rise, abandon your
shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes on the sun Get burned
on the inside
Everyone laughs, everyone cries, everyone lives Everyone dies and in between
they crawl Through stagnate realities longing to fly
All rise, abandon your shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes
on the sun Get burned on the inside and turn these tides All rise, abandon your
shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes on the sun Get burned
on the inside All rise, abandon your shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride
Fix your eyes on the sun Get burned on the inside All rise, abandon your
shadows and cut ties to your selfish pride Fix your eyes on the sun Get burned
on the inside

Your smile cuts through a smoky room,
chasing silence from the air
Your empty eyes and hollow smile
complement your vacant stare
There’s something more to stand on,
something of worth to live your life on

Chorus
Higher ground,
on higher ground
You’ll build your house where love resounds
Higher ground,
on higher ground
You’ll see your purpose from higher ground

Your determined words dance on my heart,
you’re like a conscience in my ear
Your laughing smile and brilliant eyes
remind me why
I’m here For something more to stand on,
something of worth to live my life on

Chorus

The sight of you on your feet
Face streaked with the crystal glow of tears
To show that love had saved you
and truth amazed you is the vision
I will take with me wherever I go

Chorus

The blow’s been dealt
and taken its toll
Listless I stumble like a drunk in the cold
Questioning foundations of a hope
I took for granted
I feel my soul choked by the rope
of a slanted view of reality (So it seems)
maybe I’ve been living in some childish day dream
As not but dust in motion,
an insignificant drop in an endless ocean

Chorus
So rend the veil,
the shroud that clouds my eyes
I want to see you,
and every fiber of my being is longing for you

Cut off at the knees,
gasping for breath
Grieving for my hope as it totters on the brink of death
Watching the sun fade and run down
As my ears go deaf to
the ancient and thundering sound of creations singing
I’m clinging so tight to my questions
I can’t hear its chorus ringing
Like some perpetual dancer
I’m running and spinning in search of the answers

Chorus

In this fog of pain,
creation plays its strain
The wind breathes one name,
star shines one fame

Chorus

Made like a mirror to reflect his glory
But the glass got smashed,
bought a counterfeit story
We gave into pride
Sacrificed life, on that day we died inside
Outside we ignited a rebellion,
An infectious disease that labels us felons
Cold and alone,
ever wandering in search of a home

Refrain:
Hearts breaking and shaking
in time with our hearts vibrating
We say bridges to yesterday are burned
Seasons over, all those leaves have turned
But we cannot look now
We can only keep our gaze locked on the ground
And here we stand with wide eyes
as our world comes crashing down

Chorus
Who am I to say right ?
Who am I to say you’re wrong ?
Play judge, look you in the eye,
Who am I to throw the stones

I remember when trust went for free
Sold for a smile on the face of a fantasy
Truth found her home in the pages of fairy tales
Decadent words formed the phrases for dreams that failed
Now trust is a costly commodity
Giving it away is the mark of absurdity
And truth is a homeless traveler
Hoping in the night to be found

Chorus

And we wave goodbye to our innocence
And we wave goodbye to our ignorance
And we wave goodbye to our nursery mindsets
Abandoning cribs of complacence

Chorus

Another day burns away into darkness
Another blink of the eye of time
I am straining through the blackness
Ever searching for a sign

The days grow long and the days grow dark
And the days grow ever colder
The trust that I started with fades as I get older
Though the road is hard
It seems to me there is no way around this
From all you've done for me
I know you'll never break your promise

Chorus

So here at the end of this day
Where the world is shaded in gray
I will look to the blue horizons and watch for you to come
When my hope is tattered and torn
When my faith is weathered and worn
I'll look to the blue horizons

I am still walking, evading the shadows
I am still running that narrow line
I'll go wherever you would have me go
Ever searching for a sign

The days grow long and the days grow dark
And the days grow ever colder
The trust that I started with fades as I get older
Though the road is hard
It seems to me there is no way around this
From all you've done for me
I know you'll never break your promise

Chorus

I stand tall with an arrogant grin
Filled with pride as
I chase the dreams that are riding on the wind
In ignorant determination watch me pursue
But I’m not and they’re not enough to
satisfy the hunger pains of my soul
They are like fading mirages,
illusions that leave me sold
to the truth
That’s the essence of me
. . . I’m not enough

Chorus
So here I am
Broken on my knees stretching out my weary hands
Grasp them and lift me
Help me to find a rest in your arms
that can change my state of mind

I stagger the earth with one defeated sigh
I once was longing to live
now I’m longing to die
Having attained everything that I desired
was not enough
Not enough to quench the thirst for life,
for hope for peace
Captive to my pride
now I beg for sweet release
And then a voice breathes in whispers to my soul
"I am enough, I am enough"

Chorus

Set my awkward steps straight in line
Move me to walk this life
with your hand in mine

Chorus

Sneering smiles fill my eyes
And laugh at tears
that fall from the weight of unspeakable fears
I wonder aloud
in curious tones
"Could I be proud when they hate me
and mock me ?"
What is the mind of the God that created me
I am different; I am despised
I am ever looking through the smallest of eyes
But your eyes see what mine cannot see

Chorus:
You are my God
you are life
You are the strength I need
You are the love surrounding Broken hearts
you set me free
You are my God
you are life
You are the strength I need
You are the love surrounding Broken hearts
you set me free.

The world around me is changing
All that was familiar is fading
Those I thought would never leave me left me cold
All I have from the friends that forever I’d known
All I have are names etched in headstones
And the questions of meaning and reason
These small eyes of mine can’t see past this one season
But your eyes see what mine cannot see

Chorus

Show me your eyes
Show me your mind
Show me what you see
Show me your eyes
Show me your mind
Show me all I need

Chorus 3x

Forward he marches through scornful laughter
Undaunted eyes set on hopes of here after
A gauntlet of piercing stares line his way
And condemning glares say all hate can say
As he strides ever on steps
In time with his hearts rhythm and rhyme
to the end of his day
Forevers seductive smile shatters sense
And bids him acquiesce from this solitary life

Chorus
But we don’t see,
we’ve made ourselves blind
And we don’t care,
we’ve closed our minds
And we don’t move,
we’re so paralyzed

As we sit in heartlessness watching him die
Dead to immunity,
dead to society
Fearing the slow decay of dignity the posterchild
For walking deadmen longs for the now
to be way back when

Chorus

And I see him everyday along his road
Fading away manifest in the downcast,
Recluse and outcast lepers of this age
The innocent incaged by paranoid,
misinformed minds
Enter the champions of love (so called) singing loud
Grinning as they spit out their words
So proud are the hearts unmoved by songs and ideals?
Wading through the rhetoric to clutch something real

Chorus

Breaking bread, Pouring wine,
Speaking mysteries that stretch my mind
But I failed to follow,
The meaning of fish and bread that I swallowed?
Dipping bread in a dish, calling out a trader
I'm hoping you'll explain this sooner or later
I'm living with confusion, It's like a bad dream,
Tell me, what's the conclusion?

Three times denied
Thought I was strong but it seems I was wrong
Now I see, since now I've three times denied
your name--I'm stained with shame
This wretchedness becomes my fame

Your accusation, it plagues my mind
Your prophecy leaves me horrified
Denied you never would be,
Of all of us, it would never be me

That would break your heart and make you moan
Forsake your name, leave you alone
With the sting of a coward's lie
The signed decree that declares you die

Three times denied
Thought I was strong but it seems I was wrong
Now I see, since now I've three times denied
your name--I'm stained with shame
This wretchedness becomes my fame

Nightmares run through my brain
Cold sweat covers me like a sickening stain
In this place between asleep and awake
I shake from the cold and the fear of heartbreak

And in the glow of the fire I turn into a liar
To scared to say 'I know'
And like a sheperdless sheep I run and I weep
As I hear the cock crow

You said three times
My son do you love me?
And I said three times, "You know that I do"

You said three times
My son do you love me?
And I said three times, "You know that I do"

You said three times
My son do you love me?
And I said three times, "You know that I do!"