TRAUMA AND CATHARSIS
(Music: Hoglan, Lyrics: Hoglan, Additional lyrics: Rinehart)
Leading quiet lives of desperation, we maniacally cling to the unreal.
Life pursues its stranglehold, upon us, its pain revealed.
We, as a race, are frail and weak, crises leave us paralyzed.
We strain to deal with what's thrown at us, we're therefore traumatized.
Really, I speak for no one but me,
And I am losing my grasp.
On that which I must call "myself",
This burden might be my last.
Stranded and sinking into remorse,
The darkest recesses of my mind.
The cavernous tyranny of pain and fear,
Is lunacy far behind?
(chorus)
I have dealt eternally with anguish,
I have learned to live with my distress.
From all this trauma comes profound catharsis,
And a way to cope with my life's bitterness.
Loneliness draped around my neck, in its sinister seduction.
I pray a light will come from this, my frightened introspection.
A lifetime of misery and its brethen, has depleted my reserves.
And this has brought me the true conclusion, *nothing* is what I deserve.
My early involvement in sordid acts,
Has left me scarred for life.
The road I have taken, self-doubt intact,
Denigration is my wife.
Am I a slave to the powers that be?
Have I any inner strength?
Fleeting struggles of humanity,
I pontificate at length.
(chorus)
I have dealt eternally with anguish,
I have learned to live with my distress.
From all this trauma comes profound catharsis,
And a way to cope with my life's bitterness.
As an outcast, I've become inner-dependent, trapped in a world of lies.
But now I must question my own self-worth, that leaves me demoralized.
Possessing fate of mental demons,
Surrounds my soul in these masses of pain.
Voices damning all of my thoughts,
Self-infliction capacities retained.
I'm not the only one in this world,
Who's suffered through emotional discord.
Intensities-caustic and penetrating,
Is it me I've spent all my life hating?
Thinking distorted emotions clouded,
By my personal asceticsm.
In condemnation I've been enshrouded,
Acetylene baptism.
(lead-Brett)
(lead-Eric)
(chorus)
I have dealt eternally with anguish,
I have learned to live with my distress.
From all this trauma comes profound catharsis,
And a way to cope with my life's bitterness.
I've expunged a multitude of, but sad to say,
Not all my doubts and fears.
But I look forward with trepidation,
And step with caution into my remaining years.
I am quite sure that in these words,
There's not much hope that things will ever change.
Maybe my time for suffering's past,
And I can vaguely hope for brighter days.
(chorus)
I have dealt eternally with anguish,
I have learned to live with life's distress.
From all this trauma came profound catharsis,
And a way to cope with my life's bitterness.