Woke up in a wooden whisper

Splinters in my fingernails

Smell of lilies, cheap cologne

Dirt dust dancing as I exhale

Name carved wrong above me

Two dates, one careless line

Guess they buried the body fine

But forgot about the mind

I’m buried alive

But nobody’s praying

Just worms in the dark

And the rotting bouquets

If there’s a god

He ain’t saying a thing

So I talk to the coffin

Till the coffin starts to sing

(Buried alive)

Tell me who’s listening to me

Hear the priest through warped pine panels

Selling heaven by the pound

Mama crying through a hymn

That never leaves the ground

I pound questions on the ceiling

Like a drunk at closing time

If there’s mercy in the rafters

Why’s the silence so refined?

I’m buried alive

But nobody’s praying

Just worms in the dark

And the rotting bouquets

If there’s a god

He ain’t saying a thing

So I talk to the coffin

Till the coffin starts to sing

(Buried alive)

Tell me who’s listening to me

Is there light, or just the memory

Of a lantern in my head?

Are we sparks in rotten timber

Or just stories of the dead?

If love outlasts the body

Why’s her ring so cold and clean?

Is the soul some old tradition

Or a word we say to dream?

I’m buried alive

No angels are waiting

Just echoes of doubt

In the boards and the clay

If there’s a god

He ain’t saying a thing

So I sing to the darkness

Till the darkness starts to ring

(Buried alive)

And the choir in my skull

Is the only ghost I believe