The Price of Paradise Lost

Shadows creep through empty veins

Where hope once used to flow

Mirror shows a stranger's face

As days begin to slow

Time becomes a broken clock

While debts continue growing

Friends become just memories

Their shadows softly going

Each promise made at dawn breaks down by dusk

The path back home grows longer in the dust

Emergency room fluorescent glare

Names called that no one knows

Another bed in endless rows

Where synthetic comfort flows

Pawn shops hold the photographs

Of times before the fall

Phone screens cracked and going dark

No one left to call

The lies we tell ourselves at night

Become the chains that hold us tight

Some stories end in marble stones

Too young beneath the trees

Some stories end in prison cells

Some on bended knees

But some find strength to break the chains

Though scars remain behind

Each day becomes a victory

When peace they finally find