Bystanders - Moses Sumney

You wanna strip away

Veracity is great

But you’ll bleed

And all

For a lukewarm embrace

You serate your face

With glee

Don’t waste your candor

On bystanders

They’ll watch you waste, waste, waste, waste away

What’s the use of confessing the truth

To an executioner in a booth

About the dueling forces in you

Now you barely remember your youth

You used to embrace the eerie and helm

Visitations from spirit realms

Gifted to see between astral planes now you plead to be plain

A bystander

Of bygone standards

They’ll watch you waste, waste, waste, waste away

Don’t waste your candor

On bystanders

They’ll watch you waste, waste, waste, waste away

The minute you mitigate your fire

The innocence of carnal desire

Is stolen

It’s stolen

And it’s true that the truth gives you free

But when truth is a breech of decree

Dying for praise from a gallery

Whose morality is grey

And they tie all their stones to your name

And they cripple your bones with their shame

Honesty is the most moral way

But morality is grey