If I be wicked, woe unto me;
and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head.
I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;
"there's no guarantees in life but death and taxes" they said
There's nothing in this world
but land and sea, and all the wasted space in between.
No one with a conscience deserves their conscious.
And I am no different, so why am I always standing alone?
I don't sleep anymore I just lie awake
writing down every mistake that I ever made
and the pages are filling quick.
Overanalysis is the understatement.
My anxiety is the white knuckle grip.
I don't claim anything above the rest
except my ability to recognize I'm not like the rest.
My stomach in a constant knot,
my heart is constantly in my throat.
Do you know what its like
to feel the need to be something
but when I look in the mirror
and see me, I see nothing?
[It is not the still surface of river Acheron
that reflects this regret-rich, guilt riddled past upon me.
It is the faces in those fathoms. Falchion glares, fastening.
Awful eyes, wide. So awesome a terror that I am awe-impaired.
Such sunken, filed hearts once funneled blood to fingers
carving skin like lovers etching forever
into park bench or tree limb.
Culled by currents coursing toward His Darkness' grim harvest,
I, amid the souls I sought to transcend, am them; I am the dead.]
struggling day by day with woe is me
As I open my eyes to this dead world I see its really woe are we.
We, one and all, are killing ourselves.
We are the cause of all this wrong,
and I am the first to say I am the curse.

* the lyrics in the [ ] brackets are by Shoshin, a verse that he wrote for this song that unforunately never made it onto the album, but I felt that the lyrics are perfect and complete this song so I left them in here so you get the best possible picture *

"Quixotic" is defined as "exceedingly idealistic" in reference to Don Quixote. To me, it means that those who who constantly push for something more, something better, in themselves, their lives, their friends and loved ones, despite misanthropic notions and a disdain for human nature, find that everything wrong in their life is a direct result of their own actions. every poor choice you've made, every bad person you've surrounded yourself with, every time something shitty happens to you, you can nearly always trace it back to a bad decision you've made. This idea has been ingrained in me since we began this band years ago. At our first show ever, when introducing the song "Built to Abandon" Rick said "This song is about everybody having problems in their life, and looking for someone else to blame it on, but in the end you realize that everything that happens to you, you've ultimately done to yourself." When this realization hit me, it hit me pretty fucking hard. That's what I Am the Curse is and that is what it means. Nearly every track on IATC relates to this topic. The idea of self-accountability. The idea that the only change comes from within. Everything wrong with my life, everything that I hate, is my own fault. This song isn't about resolution, but it is at least about awareness. The middle section where only the one line is repeated distorted is from my friend Shoshin. Initially, he was supposed to record a verse over the entire bridge closing the gap between the two choruses. Unfortunately we couldn't arrange it and make it happen. But he sent me his lyrics based off a few lines I had written and I had told him the concept of the song, and his lyrics blew me the fuck away. I had to include them in here. As far as I'm concerned, the song will never be fully complete because his lyrics bridge the emotional concept of the lyrics perfectly, and without his vocals, the song is lacking, to me. Musically, the majority of this song was written 2004 and 2005. I never thought it would fit with OF! until we started finishing up some of the newer songs for this album and it started moving more in a straight forward, more melodic direction. We added bits and pieces here and there in the writing process of it, but the main chunk of the riffs and melodies have been floating in my head for the better part of ten years before it ever came to fruition.