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The Conscience of the King

by Temple

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1.
In a strange dream it made sense to me, everything I built was made of stone, and when I spoke, my tongue made nothing. A flimsy little chord, my sword pointed to the city, I said, “This is mine, I want it all, the honey-dew, the neon cat-call, the bitch's brew, the rabbit's tooth, the hands of iron, the flames on fire.” I can see inside your heart, tear it apart. Make something ugly. I will be here in the morning, burn my head on guilt and money, elevate above your memory, clear-cut the path to where I'm going. I will be here when you die, I will be your sinner's blackshine, I will be here when you're ready, to melt my throne and make it into something, at the center of this forest, trees part way to reveal my conscience. I will find you in this wormwood, I will find the center in me.
2.
I'm shaking like I've been caged all night. I'm shaking like I've been caged all night. I'm shaking like I've been caged all night. And you know it. I'm shaking all of the rats off my hide. I'm shaking all of the rats off my hide. I'm shaking all of the rats off my hide. Gnaw into it, gnaw into it. I'm quiet like the knife in my side. I'm quiet like the knife in my side. I'm crying down Riverside Drive, I can't help it. I can help it. I know I never was beautiful enough for me. I want to wear my skin down. I want to chew my cheeks out. And once you told me that you are, "always so sorry. My nose is so ugly." Triangle breasted canary. Puked/high school in the sunshine morning. I'm riding my bike. I touch your spine. Give me a sign, have I wasted all of my life? Now it's time. I hear the fireworks whine overhead as your friend's phone goes dead. This moment is mine. Look into my eyes, into my head, and I realize and sigh that there is nothing I can do that will ever change the way that I am or the things that I do. Or the way you see me or the way you see you. So fuck it. I sing this song, it's where I belong. I sing for fun, the shame is gone.
3.
It was a memory I kept forgetting, something left behind became too heavy, my head felt weak with lives repeating. Shut the door on the sun retreating, into a time machine unclean. Strips of light make jetways to get away, so I did. I went out to my favorite bar with friends I never visit, I tried, I tried, I tried to see things in the worst way. But if this is the way that life must project to me, surrounded by a table of people who believe in me, I'll laugh and feel good for what I cannot change. The distance between me and Spain ruins my insides. These are hard times, these are good times. No more past lives, no long goodbyes. See yourself for the things that are alive, but don't forget the things you've done. But know that they are done, and it's not so bad, it's not so bad, no. Then every time I still feel the pressure, I feel destructive, burn songs and letters. A torn photo of a show long ago taken by some friend forgot his name, lost his number. How to accept what I've left behind? How to see things in rewound rewind? Time's arrow of my life's eye goes blind, to give me sense to the present. Now I'm singing in my old house in a city I no longer live in, waiting for someone to come back home. When suddenly it occurs to me that while this life may not belong to me, the moments that it does now mean everything, everything. Time is escaping like pine needles on the jetstream, but I will be with you until Friday morning, this record bleeds and eludes me, and it says. “I could spend my entire life hiding behind things I've left behind, or I could see the reason beyond the trees, new ways of living I cannot see. Good memories, beyond the trees! New memories!”
4.
Warm Chamber 03:16
You took your shirt off, but you didn't have to - I love you. And I felt older. It was dark and I couldn't quite see you, but I could see the blood of your bra, and my stomach in the yard, whatever good things make psalm, are gone. And for the first time you open up all your warmth to me, and force it into me. Crush my mouth and teeth. There is no grace when swept with joy, harsh and quiet, like my face torn up from crying. You stand deep in indecision. A pyramid, a chamber in it thrust wide open, where I have been chosen, to explore, learn, and protect it. But you have to trust it, you have to trust in it. Trust me. (And into the night, I see a light come down, down, down down.) And it hung on the sky, with the christmas tree and some stars, and the dogs howled between us, I can only know myself again every door is open once again, the revolving doors have trapped us in this farce, the bending waves of glass cannot exist, I'm spelunking through your chambers and they are warm. I'm feeling every instinct drain through your fist. Forced courage. It was worth it.
5.
I can't just lay here, I know she's going to come around. Reflections just water, Young Lover, just drink it like wine. I awoke in a Boar's nest, the Crow was sewing my mouth... to a clown, who couldn't make me laugh, who just played with her hair, who pissed in his bed, who said she loved me, after giving me head. There is a light. There is a light inside. There is a light. There is a light. Smooth sculpture! Smooth sculpture! Smooth sculpture what have you done to me?! My pride turned to steam/there was a girl in my bed but it was a dream/ I stood before her like a tree without leaves and I could not believe my face had become what it once never seemed/and now I'm at war every moment in this room whose door is locked so I can never leave/or will she ever love me so I give up on being who I thought I could be and accept that there is no difference between what I want and what I need/ or can one continue unto death with a volcano on one's cheekbone and to kill one's integrity to talk all night/1-800 phone sex/hidden beneath a sea of vanity? Is this all that there is to keep me psyched for the weekend? My roommates are that all I have.
6.
Let's sort this shit out. Your friends have never loved you. They love your East High Jersey next to the toilet as some bro's party. And as for the girl you've been fucking, she knows there's something missing. She wasn't raised to be a play thing. Yet, she loves how you make her feel like a lady! “Shut up and put out! Don't text me from the Friday Night Lights crowd.” “Too clingy, she'd rather see me singing! I've got that swing and I've got that feeling. Oh.” Something pulls at my sleeve in the dark of the morning. Fragments of anything wash through me cutting deep into my wanting. I want it, I want, I want anything moving and creeping in a line towards the light. I'm sleeping, and hunting, and hurting, and haunting. I will never forget what you did to me. You monster! Monster! Killer!
7.
I keep trying to lock it up but it keeps coming back, keeps coming back. I could fake that this is the life that I want, so why am I crying? When everything is fine. When I can't sleep, I coil up, like a toilet drain/slip snake in love with no one, now I'm all alone. Underground, underground, underground. Or I'm standing on the edge of it, where the air meets the land with my girlfriend. I pretend that I am a Protector, now Diablo has eaten my head. Now Natterer has eaten my head. And with my hair he has made his nest, I am impaled on the gates of heaven, I'm in line for the thrill ride, I just might explode before I get to it. Put everything in motion, I'm sick I'm sitting down, the track is only wood and iron, The Viper, and the cotton cloud. If time is only wood and iron, people are days between. Put me on the microscope--- the end is all I see. My friends, my family, Allie, and the Superbowl, a goodnight kiss, The Raging Bull, this trash dump I call my home. You will come into my life, I will possess you each time you blink your eyes. There's no coming back, there's no turning around, step into my loveshine and watch the light come down and wrap my arms in its glow. I will never know peace until you make it come down. So make it come down!
8.
When I hurt my mother's feelings, I feel the deepest sense of shame, how her body quivers, and her teeth fall off of her face. I hang my head in the bathroom, through the vent I hear her crying--- “What have I made? I'm so ashamed. Have I been played? I'm just a card game.” When my girlfriend hated me, when no one came to my housewarming party, I tie my tie way too tight. (Meanwhile, my father hung himself from the balcony, fireflies in the yard burned bright red to mock the way he was afraid to bleed.) Strap myself to a homemade bomb, this theatre is coming down. Give me that bullhorn motherfucker, I've got something to say - “No! Don't make me do it!”
9.
Temple 05:07
Clear-cut this forest, so I can find my way home. I must carry a torch to light my jack-o-lantern skull, because guilt is a hollow head from which rivers of blood will crawl. Before I left my city, I stood atop a ferris wheel, and I knew I was not welcome for the things that I have done, so I pried the window open and hid behind his throne. And I stayed there for 10,000 centuries. Temple, I took off all of my clothes. Temple, I climbed through the window. Temple, a bullet in my skull. Temple, I'm going to kill myself. Temple, I took off all of my clothes. Temple, I pried through the window. Temple, I'm hiding behind your throne. “My Lord, my Lord, we are one in the same. May I stay?”

credits

released April 13, 2013

Temple is:
Cassidy J. David-Weber - Drums
Jamie Yanda - Voice, Guitar
Myles Coyne - Bass
John Larkin - Guitar, Voice

Recorded in Milwaukee, WI by Shane Hochstetler at Howl Street Recordings.

Mastered by Carl Saff

THANK YOU: Shane & Carl (for putting up with us for this entire process), George Ananchev, Tyler Monahan, John Praw, Sam Pirruccello, Mine All Mine Records, Joshua Jahnke, Kurt Spielmann, Charzander, Jack Tell, Mike Sherman, Tim Stone, Alta, Absolutely, Space Collector, anyone who has ever been to a show at Chapter III, Shannon Connor, Eliot Sell, Josh Evert, Daniel Cleland, Maggie Schermerhorn, Allison Hicks, Anna Kropidlowski, Keep It Together Records, Skram Dunk, Scheme City, Living & Wrestling, The Paper Trail, Steve Roche, "10 Paces, Fire", Ruthann Masse, Gordy Thompson, Andy Grygiel, Patterns In Static, and anyone who has set up a show for us and/or let us sleep on their floor.

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