Black Diamonds

I’ve looked over my shoulder
Ever since I slipped on pride
Though the fire in me still smolders
My heart has gotten older
In its cage of veins and light
And though I’ve gotten bolder
The roads curve out of view
I think the unsuspected
And all the sins go undetected
When they never follow through
And all of those old shadows
Gave a stranger’s face a backglow
And all of those black diamonds
Never had a grip on time, and
It leaves me with an echo
Of what I used to be
I don’t stand on the corner
When the coyote sirens shriek
The night can rake the death in
Like a tattered, beaten deerskin
In a falcon’s crooked beak
But what else can I promise
To the whole that rise beneath
Fear clings to the rocks like
A lifelong smoker’s cough to
A row of broken teeth
And all of those old shadows
Gave a stranger’s face a backglow
And all of those black diamonds
Never had a grip on time, and
It leaves me with an echo
Of what I used to be
With every indecision
I crunch it up like long division
And wipe away the crumbs of
Whatever I’m still missing
Compound leaves unfolding
The trauma that I’m holding
Is nipping at the parts of me that I can never change
And I know it’s never hopeless
It’s only incomplete
I know that I am driven
But I don’t know when to give in
To the crevice underneath
And I’m standing in the long haul
Of someone else’s fame
My heart is never calm
It’s like a bloodstone eddy bomb, and
It’s always drawn to flame
And all of those old shadows
Gave a stranger’s face a backglow
And all of those black diamonds
Never had a grip on time, and
It leaves me with an echo
And all of those old shadows
Gave a stranger’s face a backglow
And all of those black diamonds
Never had a grip on time, and
It leaves me with an echo
Of what I used to be