​Measure the years it takes for a heart to turn to stone, When we teach the son that the world is his alone. He’s fed on a diet of vinegar and steel, Until he’s forgotten how a human’s supposed to feel. He strikes at the mirror before he learns to see, Chasing a ghost of a man he was never meant to be. We’re building a temple where the walls are made of pride, Then wonder why the spirit has no place left to hide. ​ The rose is crushed in the alley where the witnesses are blind, Leaving nothing but a silhouette in the back of a restless mind. We talk about the "quantity" like feathers in the gale, While a sister’s name is traded at a discount summer sale. Until the quality of a single breath is worth more than the gold, The story of the victim remains a story never told. The cradle is a heavy weight when the choice is out of hand, And life is just a footprint on the shifting desert sand. ​ Seven hundred thousand lights are blinking in the gloom, But there’s not enough warmth to heat a single room. The neighbor is a stranger behind a wall of frozen glass, Watching the seasons and the hungry shadows pass. A man falls in the doorway and the city doesn't blink, We’re all standing on the edge, but nobody wants to think. If the belly is empty and the table is a lie, Then a million people living is just a million ways to die. ​ The ink on the parchment is as black as the winter night, But it doesn't bring the morning or the promise of the light. The judge holds the balance but the scales are full of rust, And the "new" law is written in the ancient, settled dust. The bars are on the windows and the bars are in the head, While the "free" man walks the pavement like the living ‘mongst the dead. Until a woman walks in sunshine without checking for a ghost, The ones who claim they’re "liberated" are the ones who’re hiding most. ​ And the rain is falling upward, and the clock is standing still, Yeah, the rain is falling upward, and the clock is standing still...