Badlands

Your Smile

The birds are singing as if it's just another ordinary day,

The Sun shines, the flowers bloom, the world keeps on spinning,

All completely oblivious to the fact that I'm not okay.

I'm burned so badly, I want to stop breathing.

I've only survived the last year because you would smile at me,

But now you look at me like I'm some kind of monster.

You've realized that I love you, so now you despise me,

And I don't know if I can survive in this world much longer.

Your daily greeting was the only beautiful part of my day.

The birds, the Sun and the flowers couldn't compare or compete;

They could all cease to exist and I could be okay

If you could still smile and wave and make my world complete.

But you look at me as if you're afraid I'll turn you to stone;

I'm not Medusa, I'm just a man who's in love with you.

I've no intention of destroying your family and taking you for my own,

That's the kind of selfish thing a man in love doesn't do.

You've got nothing to worry about, I'm not going to hurt you,

I'm not going to ask you for a relationship, or even a conversation.

I'm never going to reach out to hold you, I know you don't want me to.

All I need from you is a second or two of compassion.

My whole life I have hardly felt real, I'm more like a ghoul

Condemned as I have been to wander through my life alone.

You've always made me feel human, you ease my soul,

You ease my endless suffering just by saying hello.

Without your sweet smile my soul is lost, my friend,

And I'm only asking for a smile, not for you to love me at all.

Show me a little mercy and I may be able to rise again

Like a phoenix from the embers of my tortured soul.

I have no intentions, good or bad, I promise.

I just wake up in the evening, go to work, and try to survive.

I know my heart is damned to an eternity of loneliness,

But with just a smile you can help me make it through the night.