A beloved name inside my heart
A fleeting glance became the start
A missing word I am still awaiting
A wretched deception I am creating
				

I am a sinner and I worship evil
Blood is thinner but you will never know
Can you confess that you thrive in chaos?
You're a sorceress and your eye is on the lost

But you're dying
It's in your eyes

You're a charlatan
You get everything you wish
You're a harlot
Carry poison in your kiss

Beg forgiveness
With a dagger in your hand
Sow your death seed
And reap the dying lands

But you're crying
It's only vice

Empty vessel
Drained of hope
And none the lesser at the end of
A rope
Have you ever hated like I?
Know I still awaited the absence of lies

Watch your eager tongue
Attack me from behind

Riddle whispers
Bleak futile control
Like a twin sister
Adapting to a role

You're a murderer
Bloodlust increase
You're a harvester
Come close to spread disease

And you're hiding
I hear you cry
				

Sun hangs high, I turn away
Failure underground
Heart is sick and fever is high
Waiting for a sound

Like a trail of insects to me
I watch them from afar
Feeding, breeding, scheming
Tell me I am wrong

Hiding from discovery
Staring down into the ground
Had they seen the posion in me
A tide of spite wound be found

Moving faster lingering gaze
Feasting on my sanity
A grain of sand against endless waves
A wish for the slaughter of conformity

Blinding light as the flames grow higher
Searing skin on a funeral pyre
Blinding light as the flames grow higher
Searing skin on a funeral pyre

Inside me sleeps a violence waiting to be freed

[Solo: Åkesson]

Blinding light as the flames grow higher
Searing skin on a funeral pyre
Blinding light as the flames grow higher
Searing skin on a funeral pyre

Blinding light and the flames grow higher
Searing skin on a funeral pyre
Should I speak and they'll call me a liar
I'll retreat to my funeral pyre

My sanctuary, a thousand centuries
I'm not waiting, I'm tired of waiting
I'm not waiting, I'm tired of waiting
I'm not waiting, I'm tired of waiting
I'm not waiting
				

When you're tired of waiting and time is not on your side
When you're tired of hating me, you no longer want to hide

You're stuck to the failures of your life
Marred with the sorrows of your strife

And time it waits for no one
It heals them when you die
And soon you are forgotten
A whisper within a sigh

When there's trouble admitting that you have been wrong all along
When the words you have written down reads "everything is gone"

You're stuck to the failures of your life
Marred with the sorrows of your strife

And time it waits for no one
It heals them when you die
And soon you are forgotten
A whisper within a sigh

And time it waits for no one
It heals them when you die
And soon you are forgotten
A whisper within a sigh

When you smother your friendships and take much more than you need
When you can't keep a secret to yourself and points to the source of the deed

You're stuck to the failures of your life
Marred with the sorrows of your strife

And you can never find the satisfaction
When you can't outgrow your false distractions

[Solo: Åkesson]

You know your soul is weighed on the silver scale of deceit and lies

[Solo: Åkerfeldt]
				

And on the furthest day
When you lay down
Discard your dissaray
And your rusted crown
And face the wretched image of you and I
No trust in what you say
You are a dead poison seed
Stronger when you're away
You have nothing that I need
The rhyme has settled in the ghost of a sigh
Nothing now remains
Now you will leave me be

Sunrise into the moonlight
A broken body lies in wait
Your prize won you the stark night
And you made peace with your fate
Blind eyes sensitive only to white light
Reacting just a bit too late

Preying on insecurity
A design of your schemes
A true believer of purity
Must tend to what it means
Or allow its gospel to turn into a lie
You forsake everything you feel
In favor of despair
Immune and blind to everything that is real
In your secret lair
And cast away the captive heart that was thine

And you will go and leave me be

Winter in your soul, building a wasteland
And you tread a thin ice 'neath your feet
Sneering and everyone you would shun
Collecting flowers to your wreath
Lifeline, a river cuts deep in your cold hand
It's changing when you try to breath

Leave it all behind you
There is comfort in giving up
A seed in barren soil
Might curl up into a coil
Flourish into something new
Give back what you thought was "you"
And give way to all that is new

Leave it all behind you
				

Until I take my final breath
In a year or even less
I hope you will give me all your time
And do not forget me down the line

And I will never ask you if you will stay
Or if you will cry when I go away

Ice melting into the sea
Your river flowing back to me

And when you take your final breath
In many years from now, no less
I hope you feel a peace at heart
Do not be afraid to kiss the dark

And do not ever wonder if I stayed
My love for you cannot die away
				

Hold me in your arms
Never do me harm
Never do me harm
Hold me in your arms

A raging sea in your eyes
Gives away your disguise
Grants me the peace to leave
And finally leave you be
				

An afternoon walk through the park
I keep to the shadows until it's dark
I am not educated nor free of sin
I carry thoughts of giving in

There is a void surrounding me
No sound, and in the black I can not see
There is a chasm between you and me
You have no face, no body, no words to speak

There is a wickedness in me
I cannot seem to make it go away
I am a spiritual leper, but I can see
A flock of believers gone astray
There is eternal night in my gaze
I am cast out and I am not like you
Find my way on through the haze
I am liquefied in a strange brew

An early morn walk through the park
I look to the sun when it's cold and stark

I blend with the crowd of robot minds
Never a leader, I am always behind

A voice through the rain
Tells me I am here
A glance from a veil
Brings me to tears
				

Up until recently I have been alone
Leading a tranquil life, but never at home
Something had changed and I turned to the wind
That blew through me and told me
"How long, how long?"

Silenced the voice of my heart now for years
I was perplexed by a fleeting blank stare
Biding my time until courage had built up inside me
Then came clean
"Or am I wrong"

I spend all my days contemplating my will
For the weak shall inherit the earth
When it's still
A government bid for my life
I was sold as a cog in a machine
"I walk the line"

A fleeting glance again
Tells me everything
Took a chance in vain
Drawn to a futile idea
A pursuit of happiness
As the storm rolls in
An idol of helplessness
Paved the way and then gave in

I met with my mother and I asked her why
For ten years or more she would never reply
Suddenly she said we're all born to die
Gave me purpose
Freed me
"How simple it can be"

But it is fading away from my mind
There is another me waiting behind
				

There is a sign in the rain
Every now and again
It's a symbol of hope
In the midst of a catastrophic episode
In the hour of death
There is a spiritual wealth
When we dance through the rain
And form the signs once again

If even for a second

I hear a voice on the air
It has a warning to share
Do not believe what you see
You cannot perceive what you feel
But if I do what I am told
And shun the spirit I hold
I am no longer a human
And I will not shift with the sands

The end of an era
One starts anew
You know the devil
He lives in you

There are moments of doubt
When I do not know what to do
And giving in is the only way out
When there is too much shouting
About how I should choose
Incapacitated, I am left behind
In a sea of hatred I go blind
A storm is coming, I hide away
In the years of need reason leads astray

The end of an era
One starts anew
You know the devil
He lives in you
				

The years went by with disgusting grace
A past obsession sunk without a trace
I moved into winter and found my home
As my boiling blood had turned to chrome
				

I am going away
I am going down

Sifting through a memory
Before it fades away
Adolescent secrecy
A million words astray

I cannot remember happiness
I thrive within the dark
The security of a loneliness
Is a veil that keeps my calm

By the way, I am doing fine
I have a place to stay, just behind the sunshine
And by the way, I do not need sympathy
I have a place to lay
I have more than you can see

I walk the streets alone at night
It helps to ease my mind
I lay me down come the morning light
And leave all woes behind
				

On a wind that is sailing through the morning
I have cut the harness off of my heart
On a tide that's rising with the dawning
I find I belong inside the dark

And when the waves roll in to cover me in shame
I avoid another sign of the efforts made in vain
I am just another ripple in the current of an age
Another crossed out name on another wrinkled page

Carry me home

There is a dream that tells me I am haunted
It comes to visit every fortnight or so
I wake up having lost all I have ever wanted
And a bleak apparition wants what I hold

And when the waves roll in to cover me in shame
I avoid another sign of the efforts made in vain
I am just another ripple in the current of an age
Another crossed out name on another wrinkled page

Carry me home

Should it disappear, should it go away
Would it mend the wounds I bare, the wounds of love
Could it reappear like a familiar tale?
Like a broken friendship that snuffs the moonlight above
				

A child of autumn was born
Into a world of deceit and death
And a land of ice
A break of bonds would take her away
And install a sense of loss and eternal sorrow

She walks across the country
She holds her head up high in the rain
A mother is screaming for help
And she turns around to stare
At a scene from her memory

She is hiding a wish in her heart
That flows through her blood always
And it's culled from a dream
That someone is waiting to say her name
And call her to his side at the cusp of eternity
				

Please remedy my confusion
And thrust me back to the day
The silence of your seclusion
Brings night into all you say
Pull me down again
And guide me into pain
I'm counting nocturnal hours
Drowned visions in haunted sleep
Faint flickering of your powers
Leaks out to show what you keep
Pull me down again
And guide me into
There is failure inside
This test I can't persist
Kept back by the enigma
No criterias demanded here
Deadly patterns made my wreath
Prosperous in your ways
Pale ghost in the corner
Pouring a caress on your shoulder
Puzzled by shrewd innocence
Runs a thick tide beneath
Ushered into inner graves
Nails bleeding from the struggle
It is the end for the weak at heart
Always the same
A lullaby for the ones who've lost all
Reeling inside
My gleaming eye in your necklace reflects
Stare of primal regrets
You turn your back and you walk away
Never again
Spiralling to the ground below
Like Autumn leaves left in the
wake to fade away
Waking up to your sound again
And lapse into the ways of misery
				

The mist is sleeping on the water
And winter is hiding in my heart
Thorns in my eyes are slowing me down
I can't pass through to the other side
She knows I'm the one who sought her
But when we fall, we'll fall so hard
She holds a secret and won't show me how
How to break the riddle in her eyes

This is treason of the mind and soul
Death is no reason why you would go

Inside the ghost of love is laughing
It mocks the footsteps where I go
It tells me nothing has been lost
It whispers: "you've seen darkness before"
In time the hurting will subside
And longing is overthrown
What's left is a void that grows inside
And the echo of a failure

This is treason of the mind and soul
Death is no reason why you would go

Have you ever had the feeling of a sorrow inside?
Have you ever been the reason why a hope subsides?
Have you ever seen the aftermath of giving up?

Have we given up?
Is it over?
Have you given up?
Is winter hiding in your heart?