Bitlo.ru - The Gilded Leash

(Intro – out-of-tune piano, low cello) I signed my name in cheap red ink on a Tuesday soaked in gin, the day the company let me go and the mirror caved in. He came as nothing, just a whisper in the dust, said he could teach my hollow chest the architecture of trust. I let him show me how to curl my mouth into a shape that's kind. Each lesson scraped a piece of what I was behind. Now I smile in the dark until my gums begin to bleed. He says a gentleman just needs the proper kind of seed. He lives under the second layer, twitching in the fat, pulls my pinkie just to prove where I'm at. I learned to walk like water, bow like brass, but when I blink too slow, I see him through the glass. He wears my ribs like a coat rack, cracks my jaw to fix the grin. Every mirror shows a stranger wearing my own skin. I thought I signed for power, but I signed to disappear. Now he pulls my lungs like puppet strings and whispers in my ear. The madness doesn't scream here — no, it whistles soft and low. It's the feeling that my mouth just moved but I don't run the show. He taught me that a real man never shows the broken stitch, so I button up the seizures and pretend that I am rich. He drives my legs to walk somewhere, I never know the place. I feel him laughing as he grinds the marrow of my face. Do you know what it's like to feel your own tongue turn to glue? To watch him pull my eyelids up because he likes the view? He lives between my knuckles and the hollow of my chest. Each time I try to pray, he beats upon my chest. The contract wasn't my idea — he used my frozen hand. I thought I was the master. I'm just the promised land. HE WEARS MY RIBS LIKE A COAT RACK! CRACKS MY JAW TO FIX THE GRIN! EVERY MIRROR SHOWS A STRANGER — I FORGOT WHO LET HIM IN! I THOUGHT I SIGNED FOR POWER, BUT I SIGNED TO DISAPPEAR! NOW HE PULLS MY LUNGS LIKE PUPPET STRINGS AND WHISPERS IN MY EAR! THE MADNESS DOESN'T SCREAM HERE — IT DANCES ON MY TEETH! THE SWEETEST PART OF LOSING IS FORGETTING YOU'RE BENEATH! I don't remember who I was before he climbed inside. He says my name is just a room where he comes to hide. I let him pull the levers now. I let him stretch my skin. Sometimes I try to cry — he's already laughing from within. "I can still taste the coffee from the morning I was free." That wasn't coffee, darling. That was me. "Please... just one breath without your claws." You are my breath. You are my jaws. You signed because you loved the pause between the panic and the applause. If you listen to the rustle of my suit, you'll hear the second heartbeat and the clicking of his root. I am not the man who signed. I am not the man who fell. I am just the house he lives in — and he loves the smell of hell. There is no queen. There is no throne. There is no one to save. Just a gentleman in a broken skin, already in his grave. But the gentleman's still smiling. Oh, the gentleman's still smiling. The gentleman has forgotten how to stop.