Absent Light

I'm not ready to say goodbye But the closer we get, the more that it hurts We've already come this far living on stolen moments I'm just trying to understand Take me back to the places we used to hide Where the earth moved slowly And a glimmer of hope was enough But the gaslights all burned out You left me here to walk along a burial ground I don't blame you We all give up eventually

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

Let shine the dimmest light I barely see you through the fog that will not lift Show yourself the way I knew you With no fear of being pulled by the undertow into gaping holes You were someone I believed in Few return the same men as they left You led me through hell, my constant north You were someone I believed in To keep you in the sky, untouchable All that they promised you will drag you under To keep you in the sky, untouchable All that they promised you will drag you down under the sea Stay what you are to me I'm losing you A lantern growing dark To keep you in the sky, untouchable All that they promised you will drag you under True colors painted over You were someone I believed in As they lower the veil The stars no longer guide us Deserted by ghosts of virtue Scraping the bottom

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

Pours out from my veins It takes a new shape and comes to life Am I passing down the only gift I had to give? All of us gather together at the rope, but we, we dream alone Eyes agaze that cannot know what was written in my heart You are the only one Now what matters most is letting go An execution for dreams Avert your eyes from those sent to the gallows An execution for dreams So I may be reborn, reborn, frozen earth at my grave When it thaws I'll be gone They won't find my bones Pours out from my veins, like a river of virtue to drown the world You are the only one You are the only one that sees

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

Never again will she see a sunrise awakening Over a world unbroken He brought the night with him Beyond the gates while she safely slept Never again The way she turns her face from passing strangers Is part of her now, echoing The way she wakes up cold And calls her father's name is part of her now Echoes of him Never again will she hear the raindrops Fall against the glass and not feel a chill Transported back to the night it changed And the sound of the front door forced open She awoke to the panic Down the stairs she crept A family he'd never met, broken in pieces Every single step, every living breath Underneath her nails, she will carry his pain When the structure of your new life breaks through the door It will already be sealed in the past Every single step, every living breath Underneath her nails, she will carry his pain When the structure of her new life broke through the door It was already sealed in the past

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

We are the torchbearers In a cold uncaring world, we seek warmth to feel alive To feel anything at all Calloused hands lifted toward empty skies Drifting bodies on a desolate plane And you, the righteous, listen Know that those who walk closest to the light Are often left blind Casting shadows, casting stones So far from where you began So far from where you began How can you judge the quantity of love That it takes to make something real? To bring warmth, to bring warmth, we must set this world to flame Watch as the cruel dictators of morality Choke on ash, on ash and cinder Together as one A beacon in the expanse of lightlessness We are the torchbearers

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

A day of reckoning will come when the false men who cowered will be left abandoned Pleading for an end Warming themselves by the ashes and the embers of martyrs Martyrs that they never understood They will be lost, buried in the sands of time Relics disgraced from an era forgotten Far too consumed by the allure of wealth To be concerned for the backs on which they stood The weak and broken, the castaways out in the cold They will be left abandoned by those who claim to care Those who stand proudly on the wrong side of history, mark my words Your time will come Your time will come The heartless will be the sick and the dying left with nowhere to turn I hope I have the strength to help them in their time of need To forgive them, though I know they never, never would have done the same

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

There is no time, there will be no revival When I took you in I was looking for a key Another solitude to border mine Holding out for truer lies, born to sharpen knives The lives we sought to lead became the distances And soon the years crept in Between me and my dearest friends There is no time, there will be no revival On the day I broke I was looking for a cure Laying my head between a lion's jaws Surrendered to the end, born to sharpen knives When you poison us does it feel like revenge? Every scalp that my blade has taken I laid them at your feet for your judgement So swing my guilt against me Does it feel, does it feel like revenge? My debts will not be settled, they die with me My debts will not be paid, they die with me The taste of blood still on our tongues We don't stay satisfied for long The suffering is said to make you strong But the damages repaid were not enough We don't stay satisfied, we don't stay satisfied for long

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

One year before the day she swore to me She knew exactly how this would end You left them once before And now you've found a reason To finish what you've started, started The forfeit of a barren path This is a death march, an escape from it all The final defiant act of a broken man A losing struggle now an absence embraced Guilt draped like a cross around your neck Too proud to face the burden you'll become Words scrawled across a page Close the door and leave it all behind A father, a son, you were known by many names Will they be remembered as your breathing departs? A funeral call to those who mourn this figure Withered by the rain The skies grey, downpour Above his plot of freshly carved earth A fitting epitaph if ever there was The shot rang out, echoes shattered off the wall The shot rang out, the shot rang out Echoes shattered off the wall, the shot rang out And to this day I still grieve for her Now haunted forever by that sound

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

Wash it all away, this replica, wash it all away We reveal only truths that we have chosen And tell only secrets of the surface We offer up our skin, the measure of our worth As we wade into the shallows Wash it all away, this replica The rising tide will wash it all away Raise the border and the boundaries We separate lesser evils each in their own compartments The view from this lense by its design divides us, divides us Divides us, what of the truth Only movement in the reaches of gravity Can mean anything Towers were built like castles from the sand Like statues of tyrants The tide is coming in to wash them away The towers were built like castles from the sand The rising tide will wash them away

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

Sleeping beneath the sleet, palms to the dirt No lunar glare to mark our course Among the apparitions of a potter's field The nameless, the lost, haunting a hollow so far away I never meant to end up here Betrayed by constellations I never meant to end up here, I never With no bodies of light left to guide us home With no bodies of light left to guide us home Collapse into earth and be pulled beyond your quarrel No lantern, no compass, no map to be found We set sail against the sorrow having mourned enough Adrift the current, you are not alone Even sinking into the darkness that waits below Beneath the fathomless depths with an ocean upon us Adrift the current, you are not alone Collapse into earth, be pulled beyond your quarrel No lantern, no compass, no map to be found We set sail against the sorrow

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026

In the trenches after war, outside the factories Hidden in the architecture, mimicking the angles Everything will rust In the time it takes To lift my best laid plans from the riverbed Everything will rust Despite the fear that I feel There is still enough to bury us I've come here to worship (I've come here to worship) And to scrape my nails into the stone Hoping to leave my mark, a message to my heir Are you listening to the wisdom surrounding you?

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 22, 2026