I can't shake the feeling of emptiness
Like it's filled up everything, from the grime-washed gutters
to the buildings of concrete and the steel-framed windows
Where the dreamers stare through smudged glass panes
Trapped
Kept apart from the sun and wind and lifeless rain
Sitting, staring, waiting, wishing
for something, anything
Anything more

Look around at this paved, sprawling wasteland
And tell yourself that you don't feel
So alone
In this place you won't call home
And brace yourself for alienation
Humiliation, and isolation
Flooding ice-cold, coming hand-in-hand

Here, the misfits drift like disembodied shadows
and watch the faces of enemies and strangers
Telling them who they ought to be, if only
if only, if only they were
Just listen to the undertones of hollowness
Clinging to each and every scripted word
A thousand levels of perception unspoken
Dreaming repressed and screaming unheard
The revolution silenced, the rebellion broken

Look around at this paved, sprawling wasteland
And tell yourself that you don't feel
So alone
In this place you won't call home
And brace yourself for alienation
Humiliation, and isolation
Flooding ice-cold, coming hand-in-hand

But isn't it all just meaningless
Nothingness
Wrapped in glittery layers of shallowness
While their eyes reflect pieces of a dying starlight
Victims of the system with their lips sealed tight
and numbness is maybe the answer I think
Because this detachment is stealing my soul

Look around at this paved, sprawling wasteland
And tell yourself that you don't feel
So alone
In this place you won't call home
And brace yourself for alienation
Humiliation, and isolation
Flooding ice-cold, coming hand-in-hand

This tattered world, it took my heart
Long ago
With its lying and murder and faraway wars
And I don't know how much I can bear anymore
Because dark flames of hate just give rise to despair
And there's not hope, only melted faith
Only shards of idealism, ashes of innocence
So show me a way to keep the pain at bay
So give me a way to be lifted away
Away

And just look around at this paved, sprawling wasteland
And tell yourself that you don't feel
So alone
In this place you won't call home
And brace yourself for alienation
Humiliation, and isolation
Flooding ice-cold, coming hand-in-hand

Look out at the traffic lights and black-top streets
And tell yourself you see any sign
of anything beautiful, of anything real
In this greyscale realm of self-deceiving
Sleepless dreaming, unquestioned believing

And you tell yourself that you don't feel
So alone, you don't feel alone
So alone, you don't feel
So alone
So alone