Heart Like an Axle

Too damn many losses, scars across your hide
Friend and home and family gone by
Do the miles of wasteland really roll the pain behind
Or are you racing for a place to die?

Heart like an axle, bounded by your wheels
Rolling down the endles
S blacktop road
Stripping gears and losing for every mile that falls;
How long can you keep dragging that load?

Innocence and honesty before your eyes have died
Watch yourself turn crazy by degrees
All your skills wheel down to one last purpose in this world:
To turn against the same old enemies

Honest hands hold out to you a promised home again
Why do you always turn around and run?
Is it fear to feel again the losing and the pain
Or shame of showing decent men the demon you've become?
Stand on the highway in the wreckage and the dust
Where nothing moves now but the wind and sun
How long the warrior with no one you can trust
How long before the race is run?

How long can you keep dragging that load?