The first day of school was always the hardest

The first day of school the hallways the darkest

Like a gauntlet

the voices haunted

Walking in with his thin skin lowered chin

He knew the names that they would taunt him with

Faggot sissy punk queen queer

Although he'd never had sex in his 15 years

And when they harassed him it was for a reason

And when they provoked him it became open season

for the fox and the hunter, the sparks and the thunder

that pushed the boy under, then pillage and plunder

It kind of makes you wonder

how one can hurt another

But dehumanizing the victim makes things simpler

It's like breathing with a respirator

It eases the conscience of even the most conscious

and calculating violator

Words can reduce a person to an object,

something more easy to hate

An inanimate entity, completely disposable,

no problem to obliterate

[CHORUS:]

But death is the silence

in this language of violence

Death is the silence

But death is the silence

in this cycle of violence

death is the silence

It's tough to be young, the young long to be tougher

When we pick on someone else it might make us feel rougher

Abused by their fathers but was at home though

so to prove to each other that they were not homos

The exclamation of the phobic fury

executioner, a judge and jury

The mob mentality, individuality was nowhere

Dignity forgotten at the bottom of a dumb old dare and a numb cold

stare

On the way home it was back to name calling

Ten against one they had his back up against the wall and

they reveled in their laughter as they surrounded him

But it wasn't a game when they up jumped and grounded him

They picked up their bats with their muscles straining

and they decided they were gonna beat this fella's brain in

with an awful, powerful, showerful, an hour full of violence

Inflict the strictest brutality and dominance

They didn't hear him screaming, they didn't hear him pleading

They ran like cowards and left the boy bleeding

in a pool of red 'til all tears were shed

and his eyes quietly slid into the back of his head

dead...

[CHORUS]

[2x]

You won't see the face 'til the eyelids drop

You won't hear the screaming until it stops

The boy's parents were gone and his grandmother had raised him

She was mad she had no form of retaliation

The pack didn't have to worry about being on a hitlist

But the thing they never thought about was that there was a witness

to this senseless crime, right place wrong time

Tried as an adult one of them was gonna do hard time

The first day of prison was always the hardest

The first day of prison, the hallways the darkest

Like a gauntlet

the voices haunted

Faggot, sissy, punk, queen, queer

Words he used before had a new meaning in here

As a group of men in front of him came near

for the first time in his life the young bully felt fear

He'd never been on this side of the name calling

Five against one they had his back up against the wall and

he had never questioned his own sexuality

but this group of men didn't hesitate in their reality

with an awful, powerful, showerful, an hour full of violence

Inflict the strictest brutality and dominance

They didn't hear him screaming

They didn't hear him pleading

They took what they wanted and then left him bleeding in the corner

The giant reduced to jack horner

But dehumanizing the victim makes things simpler

It's like breathing with a respirator

It eases the conscience of even the most conscious

and calculating violator

The power of words, don't take it for granted

when you hear a man ranting

Don't just read the lips, be more sublime than this

Put everything in context, is this a tale of rough justice

in a land where there's no justice at all ?

Who is really the victim ? Or are we all the cause, and victim of it

all ?

[CHORUS]

[2x]

You won't see the face 'til the eyelids drop

You won't hear the screaming until it stops