When I look into the mirror,
What do I see?
All the vice and all the need.
It’s a slow bleed
That feeds the hatred in me,
The evasion of pleas,
The casual cruelty of the free.
I call her demon in green,
Draped in red, white, and blue.
An entreaty to a greater deity –
Make the image someone other
Than me.
Make me more than the colorful character,
I’ve pretended so long to be,
The one now wearing my skin permanently.

It’s simpler to look away.
It’s faster to turn off the light,
But then the darkness descends,
Gnawing its way from the unseen,
To the disbelieved, to the undeniable.
Malicious thoughts become wicked acts,
When there’s no light to banish them,
Indifference and inaction turn monstrous fast,
When there’s no one to force us forward.

Disease triumphs in the places,
We can’t stand to tilt our view.
Plagues perpetrated by ill-begotten rage,
While good men stand down and close their eyes.
Once they’re forced open, they’ll see in
Their reflection an equal amount of blood.
On our hands, on our faces, in our eyes.

Be a savior, Be a liar
Make it better the only way we know how.
Distort the truth,
Cover up the mirror,
And tell a story so simple and clean,
Only a child could make it clearer.

There’re no cures for cancers like these,
No antidotes, no pills.
Not when the rot comes from
Turning away and doing nothing.
I can’t stand who awaits me,
In my flawed reflection,
An apathetic reject of
Virtue, Worth, and Work.
The truth hurts, but I blame:
Everything else. From it to the world,
But never the cause, never myself.
I need something to put my conscious at ease,
So I’ll beg you, please,
Lie To Me.
And help me hide from what I see.

Jessie Gutierrez

Just finished Season Three of The Magicians. This song struck me hard. Hell, the whole season did; it was delightfully epic. Anyone else a fan?