Anthem - Assemblage 23

We are born of stone

And etched by wind

Cast aside to live or die

We are the pawns in our own game

Like refugees

Of silent war

We step on ever-shifting ground

Promoting what we undermine

For countless days

We walked alone

Directionless and vulnerable

Sitting targets wearing smiles

No one of us will go unscathed

By private battles we have braved

A vicious circle we have built

Constructed from our shame and guilt

The flags we wave

Are set afire

To warm the bones of infant dreams

Even as our present is set ablaze

The tinderbox

We sit upon

Decays in churning mists of fog

And crumbles down into the sea

No one of us will go unscathed

By private battles we have braved

A vicious circle we have built

Constructed from our shame and guilt

We lie embraced

In the arms of dawn

The fading echoes of pointless time

Statuettes of ignorance

And even as

The clock hand sweeps

We pay no mind to where we are

Surely we’re not allowed to die

No one of us will go unscathed

By private battles we have braved

A vicious circle we have built

Constructed from our shame and guilt