For your consideration/interest...

Let me give you the basic overview first: I think what we have are two parallel stories being told at once. I believe, like Cygnus and "Diary Boy/Girl", there is a person Cygnus knows whose life story, though very, very different, is nevertheless extremely similar thematically to his own. I believe they are good friends, and that the FTM album traces both of their lives. Sometimes the stories overlap, other times they are told in succession, as if they are having a conversation about the parallels they see between them. I believe the entire album culminates in Cassandra Geminni, where Cygnus' friend (whom, for the sake of argument, I will call "Miranda", though I do not believe that is their real name, as they seem clearly to be male) lays out their parallels in summary form, and shows how their mutual pains have led them to self-destructive behavior, and prophesies Cygnus' immanent death.

I am going to concentrate this analysis on "Miranda's" story, as Cygnus' story has been endlessly analyzed already, and I believe, although many details are hotly debated, we do have a pretty solid sense of the themes going on in his life, and a general idea of the plot.

Let me summarize Miranda's story briefly right at the start: Miranda is an incest survivor, who "sang" his story to his assorted relatives, and they did not believe him. His mother, Frances, had witnessed something, most likely an inappropriate kiss between Miranda and this unspecified molester. By telling what she knew, she could have corroborated his story, but, she kept her silence, and thus is known by the bitter nickname "the Mute." Miranda ran far away from home, only to wind up living on the streets, becoming a prostitute to support his worsening drug habit, and things have generally not been going well.

And, let me say this -- I believe this story fits the lyrics very well. However, not everything I have laid out above is specifically mentioned in the lyrics. Some is inferred, interpolated. So, bear with me on this a bit.

***
Frances the Mute (the single)

(bells ringing through the song's intro)

Scenario: Miranda has more or less bottomed out. He has tried calling home, but nobody is answering the phone. He waits thirteen endless seconds before finally giving up (these thirteen seconds stretch into several minutes, owing to his apprehension, and time distortion from the drugs.)


It's been thirteen seconds
Since you all last said
I've become the apparition
You predicted for my death

As he's been waiting, he's been too nervous to pay any attention to the prophecy given to him by his family upon his leaving that he would die, which usually plays over and over in his head like a looped tape. He has "become the apparition" in the sense of Burroughs' contention that the junkie is "el hombre invisible", a living ghost.


You said that flirting
Brings you closer to the end
You can bait into the water
But you'll never get the hint

Miranda had been acting-out at home, probably dabbling in drugs, though the reference to "flirting" bringing on disaster brings to mind the kind of blame that rape victims are often subject by allegations that their behavior brought on the attack, and gives me the feeling that if his family actually believes him on any level about what happened to him, they probably believe it was his own flirting that got him into that situation anyway. And, now, the drugs seem to be heading the same way in their opinion. They have used this line of reasoning with him countless times before, but like the wary fish, he hasn't fallen for it, and anyway, they have no real clue what kind of pain he has been going through.


And like a stain of bricks
Goes dancing by your head

The bricks, which could have stained them (with associations of guilt -- scarlet letter kind of thing), have just whizzed by their heads. They missed being branded by the allegations he threw at them before he left by a hair's breadth.


Plucked from an icebox
Grafted on my skin

This is the icepick, which of course is one a series of phallic symbols in the piece. Normally fluid, like water, you put it in the icebox to harden it up. Which is to imply that it's not getting hard on its own the way it should be -- which is symptomatic of the abuse. He grafts it in it's erect state on his skin, which is to say that he had felt emasculated owing to the sexual abuse, but the syringe (ice pick) has made that feeling go away.


My coat has hid the marks
Mink hits the shovel fix

His coat hides his track marks. And, as we will see in Cassandra, junk has become his new predatory lover, which drives him closer and closer to the grave.


Near the sway of pendulums

A reference to Edgar Allen Poe's tale of the Spanish Inquision, "The Pit and the Pendulum." If Miranda is "near the sway of pendulums", he is deep in the pit. Could also locate Miranda in Baltimore, of which Poe is the most famous former resident (with all due respect, of course, to John Waters and Divine...)


Boar abrasions and a kiss

The pigs hurt him back at home, for sure, but they continue to hurt him here. I am thinking Miranda is quite young, and the feminine nickname suggests he is probably a bit effeminate. He is probably regular prey to the tougher elements in his environment, who both beat him (the abrasions) and possibly rape him, although there's a good likelihood that he, like a lot of runaways, has turned to prostitution to support himself and his addiction.


She said I'll never let them hurt you.
I'll never let them in.

Frances had vowed to protect him, but failed to do so.


What you took from me is mine
What is mine I'll never give.

A lot was taken from Miranda owing to the abuse -- his innocence, his comfort with sexuality, his trust... hell, ultimately, he lost his whole family. So, he is not about to trust people again. Also, this is further evidence that he is probably supporting himself through prostitution, as it seems implied that the way in which he was "taken" before, he now has no intention of "giving", though selling is not out of the question.


Mascara glass in the molar weeds

He's smoking crack, driven to it by memories of his mother's figurative abandonment, hence the stain of mascara on the glass. "Molar weeds" also rather implies his teeth are rotting, as is common among heroin addicts.


Her ash a serpent infancy

HER smoking (probably pot) is what led to his conception in the first place, as detailed below...


His eye patch pussed a gap of sand

His father's condom broke. His mother is described as dry, implying frigidity.


Into his shine a sedative

In the same way Miranda shoots his sedative of choice into his arm, his father shot his sperm in his mother, and the resulting conception had a sedating effect on his life. One would expect his father had married his mother and had put aside his youthful ways for a more serious life.


More and more the dirt collects

Things get worse and worse as time passes -- dirtier, messier, harder to sort out.


You'll never find her body now
Her closet festered in a secret air
Blonde underneath a blackened hair

Frances has lots of secrets. She conceals her blonde hair with dye, possibly (see below) to obscure the lack of likelihood that Miranda's ostensible father is his actual father. This is couched in the language of murder, which foreshadows the violent fantasy that is to come.


He never knew the colony gestated in his bed

The man Frances pegged as Miranda's father was completely unaware that "the colony" had slept with Frances, also, and that the resulting offspring could belong to any one of them. Interestingly, the coquis at the beginning of Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore, as well as the Caribbean associations of the name Miranda via Shakespeare, place Miranda's native land as Puerto Rico, which could be thought of as a colony of the United States. So, basically, this is to say he never knew the whole damn island was sleeping with her.


Mingle with the carnivores
You've something both in common now

This is spoken by the infamous "robot voice", which later shows up narrating the "lapdance" segment of Cassandra Geminni. I believe this voice represents something like Miranda's superego -- it is a ruthlessly honest and self-critical voice that tells him what is really going on, and warns him about patterns he is repeating. Here, it is basically telling him that as he has been raised by such aggressive, abusive people, he is now acting just like them, in abusing himself the same way by injecting himself with the very phallic needles and selling his butt on the street corners. This is something of a foreshadowing to his huge revelation later, that he has "become like one of the others."


Till one day his wasted breath
Swollen throat and karma debt
Set foot inside a parlor
To find her drunken by receipts

Now, as his superego has drawn him in parallel with the aggressive males of his family in the way he is treating himself, the "he" suddenly refers to Miranda. His breath is wasted, and his throat swollen, from talking so long with nobody listening or believing, and owing to the "blame the victim" vibes his family gives off, he is also driven by a sense of guilt over his own abuse. He walks into a parlor (which brings to mind "massage parlor", and further alludes to the fact that he thinks his mother is a whore, at least figuratively), and finds her drunken off of her ill-gotten gains. (Interesting that his mother is a whore, and so is Miranda, but he doesn't seem to see the connection). This drunkenness is a character point, identifying her as an alcoholic, and will be referenced in later songs.


He held her by the ankles
Gutted at the nave
Yes gutted and depraves
He tied a rope around her legs
And let her hang for seven days

Also interestingly, his attack against his mother has sexual overtones -- grabbing her by the ankles. He guts her at the "nave", which is appropriate to her status as his mother, and in so doing, he undoubtedly slices through her womb, as if severing her maternal connection to him. He repeats this, because he is rather astonished that he has enough wrath to imagine such a thing! He ties her up to hang and bleed to death, as a butcher would do to a pig, this drawing a connection between her and Miranda's abusers, past and present.


This never happened
But I saw you leave
And crawl into
A bed of broken windows
This never happened

This never happened, of course, is the classic incest denial. But, it's also just him saying he was only fantasizing about that last part, although she did abandon him ("I saw you leave") by failing to adequately protect him from the abuse, and by refusing to tell the truth when he finally "sang." She sleeps on broken glass, because her eyes (the windows of the soul) were destroyed by their mute, false witness., and she will never be able to sleep well ever again, knowing her guilt and culpability in what happened to him.



Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus

I believe most of this song references Cygnus' search for his family, and as such, has been well covered elsewhere, so I'm not going to go line to line on most of it. But, some parts of it seem to also refer to Miranda, or to refer to both of them simultaneously.

The ocean floor is hidden
From your viewing lens
A depth perception
Languished in the night
All my life, I’ve been
Sewing the wounds
But the seeds sprout
A lachrymal cloud

Neither of them have much sense of perspective in all of this -- they can't fathom to the roots of their situation, because it's bound up in other people, who have largely obscured the truth. So, any sense of "depth perception" is lost. And, both have spent their entire lives trying to sew up the wounds, but they are simultaneously sowing the seeds of future suffering, because they choose ways of coping that are self-destructive, and repeat the abuse they have suffered. Also, what do you "sew" with? A needle... Water in this piece seems to refer to the subconscious, and to overpowering emotional states. The basis of these feelings, and their entire psyches, are complete mysteries to them.


Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Que vas sufrir (You're going to suffer)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Salte veneno (Poison, get out!)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Salte de aqui (Get out of here!)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Labios temblando (Trembling lips)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Salte veneno (Poison, get out!)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Salte de aqui (Get out of here!)
Niño preparate (Boy, get ready!)
Brincan los cuerpos (The bodies get excited)
Vas a sufrir (You're going to suffer!)

This goes for both of them, too. They are being told that their lives are going to be painful, and they should prepare themselves, and need to expel the poison that has infected their wounds. I think, in large part, this album is part of that process of "getting the venom out" -- processing the rage and loss as part of the mourning process in order to let it go. Of course, the reference to "poison" brings to mind drugs, but at this early stage, I don't believe either Cygnus or Miranda would see drugs as a problem, but rather as the answer. The "poison" that concerns them, I'm sure, is that which was given to them by their parents' literal and figurative abandonments.


All the severed proof
Talons scratch my suit
These are the feathers
That replace them

The talons of male aggression have injured them, have scratched away the suits they wear that posit them as "not like that", but ultimately, the feathers show through, and say that they are just like their fathers (which the fantasy sequence in FTM seems to indicate).


Who do you trust?
Will they feed us the womb?
Chrome the fetal mirage?
Will they feed us the womb?

I think this is Cygnus speaking, but he is addressing Miranda, who is the other half of "us." Both of them have problems trusting other people in the wake of what has happened to them. "Feed us the womb" seems to imply making them into carnivores feeding off of their mothers -- which is to say, to become "like the others." Will this rage at their mutual abandonment turn them into the same kind of b*****ds as most of the men they have encountered so far in their lives?

"Chrome the fetal mirage" seems to imply that their parents seek to conceal the truth of the past by covering it over with reflective surfaces, mirrors. So, the "mothers and feathers" are out to make it feel as if they (Cygnus and Miranda) are to blame for their situation.


I found the remnants
Of a crescent fang
It cleaned my wing
Down to the bone

Given that we know Miranda to be a junky, the crescent fang is most likely a needle. As with Cygnus, the "feathers" bring to mind "the birds," although it is unclear in Miranda's case which male family member was the abuser, but we can make a convenient assumption, for the sake of argument, that it was his father. So, he injects himself with this discarded needle, and the effects of the junk cut him off (as they do) from his own sexuality. So, he has, in effect, cut himself off from his father in a parallel manner to the way he sliced away his attachment to his mother in the last song.


Bring me this plague

Similar to the way in which Omar has said in interviews that when he was living on the streets, he engaged in all kinds of risky behavior -- sharing dirty needles, even piercing his lip with a discarded needle he found laying around somewhere -- and never once thought about the possibility that he might get AIDS, I believe Miranda is also playing a game of Russian Roulette with fate, and actually rather invites catastrophe.


She took a drink
Those nicotine stains
On his every word

Miranda's parents's addictions, as drawn in FTM. In this context, it draws parallels between their substance abuse and his own.


My scavenger quilt
Will only hide the truth

Of course, given the reference to "plague" above, "quilt" brings to mind the AIDS quilt. Simultaneously, however, Miranda is saying that he has pieced together something to make him feel secure -- in the way a blanket would to a small child -- but this is a false sense of security, and only covers up his real problems.


Bring me
Bring me this plague

Repeated from above, for emphasis, as if to say, "If this is what I have to live for, I'd rather die."


This next part is interesting, because it is recorded in such a way that as each line trails off, the other overlaps it slightly, as if to imply a conversation:


I count the days to find what was left behind

Miranda starts, counting the days since he left home until such time as he comes to some kind of peace with his family situation.


Only these names I clutch will lead me to my home

Cygnus says he doesn't have any way to go home, besides these names. Although, he has no way of really knowing the names of his birth family. It is my theory that the names actually belong to Miranda's family, as he certainly remembers all of them, and Cygnus has "borrowed" them and uses them symbolically for stand-ins in his own fantasy drama of finding his family that he obsesses over


Somehow this river marks a wrinkle hand in mine

I imagine Miranda usually stays by a river, and it reminds him of his inability to escape his connection to his parents, as it's in the wrinkles of his hand, his fingerprints, his dna, so he always holds the hand of his parents, whether he likes it or not.


And every day that parts the water into two

Cygnus takes up the river theme, except to say that in his case, the water of time separates him further and further from his family.


Mothers and feathers start
To drown the living proof

Miranda commenting that his situation is similar to Cygnus' -- both sets of parents set out to obscure the truth, which lives on in both of them.


I can't remember these lakes of blood

Cygnus counters that he can't even remember his parents, or what happened to them, so whereas Miranda complains about his parents drowning the truth, Cygnus can't even remember the lake of denial itself!


Wrapped in a blanket there sweats a cut

Here Miranda ties his in the ideas of parental care of a child with hiding and denial -- the wound is secreted away behind blankets, as a baby would be wrapped, but the wound still seeps puss. Self-mutilation, cutting oneself, is a relatively common symptom of childhood sexual abuse. One would imagine Miranda probably cuts himself. It also calls back to mind the "scavenger quilt" from earlier.


***
The Widow

We have interpreted with in relation to Cygnus, and found it difficult to sort out the sex from the drugs. Well, given Omar's contention that this song represents a case where Cygnus and Frances cross paths unaware, and Cygnus "fills in" for his deceased father, which he identifies as an Oedipal situation, we can assume that Cygnus is prostituting himself to his mother.

Now, although of course Cygnus and Miranda seem to have a common occupation (this is probably how they have gotten to know each other), listening to this song with Miranda in mind, it seems to me that he is narrating, and the "he" he is describing is a drug dealer.


He's got fasting black lungs
Made of clove splintered shards
They're the kind that will talk
Through a wheezing of coughs

The first thing that hits me with this is that the drug dealer is a smoker, just like Miranda has described his parents as in FTM -- so I don't think it would be too much of a stretch here to think that this implies he's looking for his home/his family in his association with this character.


And I hear him every night
In every pore
And every time he just makes me warm

Kind of the same deal as with the Widow, except the warmth comes not from substituting for the deceased spouse, but for the disowned family.


Freeze without an answer
Free from all the shame
Then I'll hide
Cuz I'll never, never sleep alone

I think the "freezing" is the effects of the drugs -- they literally "chill him out.", and he doesn't feel like he has to answer for anything. And, the shame makes a LOT of sense on this level -- the drug makes him forget all about that situation, completely. And, it allows him to "hide" from his sexuality, because he will never sleep alone -- both in the sense of possible nightmare remembrances of the abuse, and in the sense that when he does get together with someone sexually, he always has this hanging over his head, never alone because they have contaminated his memories and his ability to deal with certain things. But, smack takes care of both of these problems, very neatly -- knocking him out completely past dreaming, and obliterating his sexual desires.


Look at how they flock to him
From an aisle of open sores
He knows that the taste is such
Such to die for

On the one level, this is talking about people flocking to the dealer to buy drugs, and the taste to die for is that provided by the drugs, but, on another, Miranda has already in Cygnus brought up his propensity for playing Russian Roulette with AIDS, so these lines can work both ways for him.


And I hear him every night
On every street
The scales that do slither deliver me from...

Of course the scales for weighing drugs, but also the scales of the snake, as in giving into the temptation of sex.

The line ends abruptly, because it is its own conclusion. The scales that do slither deliver him from the scales that do slither, which is something of a snake biting it's own tail, but my point is, the drugs deliver him from temptation -- keep him far away from all the unpleasantness of memories and uncomfortable sex.


Said I'm, said I'm, said I'm bloodshot for sure

He's obviously addicted, so he's "bloodshot" in that sense, but this might also be another allusion to him assuming he's already been infected by all the risky behavior he's been engaging in.


Pale run the ghost

Refers to himself -- he is the apparition that was predicted for his death.


Til I'm swollen on the shore, swollen on the shore

Goes back to all the "death by water" allusions in this thing -- water and venom seem linked (could probably throw semen and tears into that mixture, too). If he dies, it will be by drowning, and hence swelling from soaking in all that water. But, drowning on venom, which is to say, overdosing.


And, goes without saying, "Let me die, cuz I'll never sleep alone" -- "I'd rather be dead than deal with any of this sh*t anymore."




L'Via L'Viaquez

I find the title interesting. Listening to the song, it seems L'Via is a character Cygnus meets up with who only gives him half the truth about his mother. But, L'Viaquez makes reference to Puerto Rico and hence to Miranda, which seems to imply the "twins" theme again, and implies that this is actually part of both of their stories. It seems to me that the Spanish lines are narrated by Cygnus, and the English ones by Miranda, therefore, I am going to largely ignore the Spanish verses, as they have been gone over endlessly in reference to Cygnus.

Also important to note, the "Miranda" mentioned in the Spanish section of this song, is meant in Cygnus' sense of the name -- she is the mother of L' Via. He has borrowed his friends' nickname to sardonically comment on L' Via's refusal to tell him the whole story, which may incriminate her in some way, in the same way that one would imagine Miranda held his silence for many years before getting up the nerve to break the silence, out of his own sense of guilt at what was happening to him.


Blackmailed she fell off every mountain
The ones they tightly wrapped in tape

This implies there are other family members putting pressure on Frances to remain silent, and she metaphorically falls off the mountains of "red tape" that are used to obscure the truth.


In her eraser sang the guilty
As it made the best mistakes

This will become more significant later, but I am going to make a guess here that Miranda's mother Frances is a schoolteacher. So, the eraser line is apropos -- as she obscures the truth with her eraser of silence, the guilty "sing". Although, it is clear, by her silent allegiance with the perpetrator, who he is.


And with everybody that I find
And with every clamor that they mine
I won’t forget who I’m looking for
Oh mother help me, I’m looking for...

Although it's written out "everybody that I find" (which seems to refer to Cygnus's story), Cedric pronounces the word "every body", which ties in with the situation on Viequez -- where innocent civilians are killed by war games -- as well as with the violent conditions of Miranda's life on the streets. Likewise, though written "clamor", Cedric sings "claymore" which together with mines points to Viequez. And, when you think about it, Puerto Rico is Miranda's mother, as well -- in the sense of his motherland. So, when he hears things about the military situation there, or when he looks at the situation he found himself in as a homeless runaway, it makes him think about his mother, and like Cygnus, that is who he desperately wants to be reunited with -- the loving mother that was swearing to protect him, before the abuse occurred, and before she abandoned him with her silence.


Shark kites got tangled in the moleskin
Urgent plea of escape

I'm not one hundred percent sure what to make of this, except that I think it probably references the abuse. Moleskin is used to cover up tender spots so blisters don't form, but the word shark implies aggression, violence. Kites might tie into the story of his abuse somehow -- dunno. But, the urgent plea of escape could be in reference to the abuse, or to the phone call he tried to place home, and likewise, his addiction was a way to cover up the tender spot of his abuse, but wound up causing him more pain, too.


A mouth to mouth on the chalkboard
Written in fingernail distaste  

This is "the writing on the wall", made personal by the teacher references. He's saying that his mother could not have missed the signs, they were written on the wall. The mouth-to-mouth is of course the abuse, and it's written like fingernails on a chalkboard -- so distasteful because it's incestuous that it makes you cringe.



Miranda, that Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore

The narrator of this song appears to be Cygnus, commenting on Miranda's situation. It seems as if Cygnus and Miranda had been rather casual friends and drug buddies in the past, but this song represents the first time they have really bonded by talking in depth about these matters.


Well, I've always wanted to eat glass with you again
But I never knew how, how to talk without
Walls dropping on the eve

"I've seriously missed getting completely f**ked up with you again." (eating glass implying smoking crack) "But, I'm not so good at these heavy, deep, personal conversations. Feel a lot more comfortable talking if there are other people listening, less intimate. Seems like it takes a major disaster to happen before we can talk like this."


The nest they made couldn't break you
Along the fallen scowled a fence of beaks

"Yeah, your family's pretty f**ked up, but that's not what broke you. It's the sh*t that's gone down since you've been gone -- all the predatory b*****ds that are surrounding you, mocking you, beating you..."


But the temple is scathing
Through your own veins they're scaling
Through an icepick of abscess reckoning

"But now, you've turned it around on yourself, and you're f**king yourself up in just the same way they've done to you, except you're using the needle this time, to try and figure out this festering wound inside you"


And when Miranda sang everyone turned away
Used to the noose they obey

"You told them what happened, and they didn't believe you. Didn't stand by you. Didn't corroborate your story, even though deep down they know the truth. They saw it all. But, they're too afraid of what the truth says about them, and what would happen to them if anybody found out, to stand by you on this."


And whoever said that they would scatter
Separating the mother from child

"Did you really think she would break ranks with them to come to your defense? She's abandoned you."


She can bat her broken eyelid
Raining maggots from the stye
And with the traces that she leaves
She will skin you out alive

"And she goes on, batting her eyes at the one that abused you, the same eyes that she claims didn't see a thing. But, the effect her denial is having on you is f**king you up, big time. I bet you're cutting yourself, aren't you?"


All the children go grinding their jaws
The sweet smell of their toothless canals

"This is how all the kids like us wind up, grinding our jaws from the crack, and losing our teeth from the smack."


And the damn she will break
Make an ocean from this lake
As they siphon off all of our blood

"Sooner or later, all this stuff that's building up inside you is gonna burst out, and things are going to go from bad to worse for you. And you know who's gonna profit off of your downfall, right? The dealers. They always do."



Cassandra Geminni

I think this song is the culmination of all the rest, and represents Miranda speaking to Cygnus about their similar situations -- drawing them as the twins of the title.


I think I've become like one of the others
I think I've become like one of the others
I think I've become like one of the others

Omar has said people go on to become their parents, regardless of all their efforts to the contrary. I imagine Miranda is here saying that he realizes that he is just like them. I know for myself, as an abuse survivor, the realization of the many ways in which I am just like my parents went a long way towards getting to the place where I could start to deal with them again -- I started to be able to let go of my anger against them, which was poisoning my life. And, I also think here, he's realizing that the way he abuses himself with drugs and cutting is just replaying his abuse over and over again, with himself as the perpetrator.


There was a frail syrup
Dripping off his lap danced lapel,
Punctuated by her
Decrepit prowl
She washed down the hatchling gizzard
Soft as a mane of needles
His orifice icicles hemorrhaged
By combing her torso to a pile
Perspired
The trophy shelves made room for his collapse
She was a mink handjob in sarcophagus heels

Same interp of this I've had: this is heroin, f**king him/them over. Interestingly enough, for the first time I notice the "hatchling" reference -- which goes back to the baby bird fallen from the nest. She (heroin) feeds off of this broken, displaced child's guts as she f**ks him over towards the grave.


Bring me to my knees
Read the sharpened lines
All my arms, bled me blind

I think this is pretty self-explanatory. The drugs bring him to his knees, make him subservient. He is able to see things clearly, reading the evidence, signs that show that he is being bled blind by this.


Faucet leaks in shadows
Spilling from morgue lancet
Caressed your fontanelle

"You" in this piece is Cygnus. They have in common these lurking leakings, these sexual encounters shrouded in secrets, but of course, Cygnus was the one stolen away from his mother, in whatever circumstances, here metaphorically invoked by the image of a post-mortem c-section.


I've sworn to kill every last one
Every last one

Every last one of the birds, I would imagine, and I imagine this is probably a mutual sentiment.


Panic in the shakes of the wounded
Panic in the worms
Onto the floor
And out of your mouth
Out of your eyelids

"Worms" = "bird food" as well as the obsessive ideas that eat away at the brain in all kinds of addiction. They also bring to mind, of course, death and decay. So, the fact that they are decaying while alive leads them to be prime fodder for the scavengers in the form of drug dealers, who profit off of their self-destruction, and also, the dark, obsessive musings come pouring out of their head, and poison all of their relationships with other people.


No there's no light, in the darkest
Of your furthest reaches
No there's no light, in the darkest
Of your furthest reaches

Basically, you can mine this vein as long as you want, and you'll never have the answers. I suspect Miranda speaks from experience here, having done the same kind of obsessive mulling over his circumstances, only to find that lt leads nowhere good.


All your dreams, splintered off
Leech by leech on this catafalque

Again, self-explanatory, and reminds me of what Omar has said in that interview about how, when he was strung out on junk and living on the streets, he lost all his dreams and everything that made him uniquely himself. And, Miranda is pointing out that Cygnus is doing the same thing.


Anyone will tell you, yes anyone
Chance had me setting a trip wire alarm

My sense of this is that it was rather random that he wound up being victimized the way he did, but it led him to set these booby-traps for himself.


Your mother flirted with disease
When she skinned that costume by its navel strings

Miranda is telling Cygnus not to idolize his mother or think of her as this Holy Grail (as he rather did in his own FTM fantasy about "I'll never let them hurt you"), because the reality is that she was probably whoring around, and she abandoned him, in any case.


Shock lest shackles free you
Volt face cons
abandon you again
I won't feel not this time

Those in power have ways of continuing to control you psychologically even if you manage to break free of your shackles of drug addiction, but the resulting abuse of power/abandonment is one he refuses to acknowledge/feel.


Brick by brick, the night eclipsed
Pricked by cuticle thorns
Dried the sleep on nursery slits
Into this life I'm born

Here I stand by my previous interpretation -- he's pricking himself with needles to "make the night darker" -- to obliterate consciousness entirely. It also reminds me of Omar's tattoo of Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" -- which he has explained as referring to a period in his life when he was plagued by insomnia, afraid to go to sleep because of the horrible dreams he was having. Junk in this case self-medicates the sleeping problems away. Also, the sleep is "dried", as addicts will save dried cotton balls with left-over heroin in them, to be rehydrated and used on the probverbial "rainy day." The nursery slits refer to Cygnus being taken from his mother, and hence violently born.


Heaven's just a scab away
I'd like to see you after just one taste
Sink your teeth into the flesh of midnight
Night forever more, let them see it has begun
The others I've become

Miranda and Cygnus encourage one another in their addictions and death-chasing, and they see it as self-punishment for having become like their parents.


If you should see the dice, charmed with
Its snaked choked eyes
You'll wear the widows weeds
Because they're just your size

This is a rather fatalistic view being purported. Miranda is basically saying this situation was predestined -- anyone who had been through what they have would have wound up in exactly the same situation, and would have wanted to die, just the way "the widow" (a different person for both of them) does. So, by rolling these dice, they are always going to come up the with the same twin one-dots, "snake eyes", the low roll. Obviously, this is far from the truth, but this is how they lie to themselves, keeping themselves comfy in their self-abuse.


Behind the snail secretion, leaves a dry heave that absorbs
A limbless procreation, let the infant crawled deformed

Miranda repeats the FTM story of his own conception. The snail secretion is his father's ejaculation, the "dry heave" his mother's orgasm (relates to the "gap of sand"), and he is the resulting infant, deformed by being born armless, wormlike -- small, weak, vulnerable, "bird food".


A bag replaced the breath of these suffocating sheets
And now when the craving calls
I'll scratch my itchy teeth

When Cedric sings this, he is clearly saying "sheath", not "teeth" in the last line. And, I believe this means that Miranda has replaced his normal sexual desires with drugs (the "bag"), because the effects of his abuse are such that he is very uncomfortable feeling sexual desire -- the sheets are "suffocating." So, now when he feels desire for drugs, he'll scratch his cock, because the one is the stand in for the other. Also, a sheath is a leather pouch for storing a knife, and this illustrates how he conflates sex and violence.


Come on and sing it now
Sink your teeth
Into the flesh of midnight, night forever more
Sink your teeth
Into the flesh of midnight, night forever more

More mutual encouragement to continue self-destructing.


She fell for the whispers, sister flooded deaf tears
That night tore a river, in her baron womb mirror
And his multiple sons with their mandible tongues
Set crucified fires to petrified homes... let it burn

I think this speaks for both of them. It sets up the "sisters" -- L'Via and Frances. They are sisters in the sense that they function the same way in the stories. They are the mute witnesses, they cry but do not speak, do not hear. And, given the assumption that Cygnus is the product of rape, that would explain the violence of the image. And, the word "barren" always brings to my mind not only sterility, but dryness, so that ties into the Miranda's description of his mother. Also, the the river was torn in her barren womb, in the same way in his fantasy in FTM, Miranda split her in two and disemboweled her. The sons (Miranda and Cygnus) have a common father, because all sons of birds have a common father, and their sons turn to destruction, in rebel against their "petrified homes" -- both cold and hard as stone, and also, terrified.


And the owls they were watching
And the owls didn't care
Then the owls came a knocking, placenta in their stares
They will feed on all the carnage, leftover from the flood
And in the corner of their eyes, fled sister L'Via

The owls are Frances and L' Via, but they are also the scavengers that feed off of the children abandoned by these women.


Now the pieces went floating, reflecting all at dusk
Conceived from the stabbing, was Vismund Cygnus

Without saying too much, I think it's pretty clear that these two characters correspond in terms of their stories with two real-world characters, at least to a degree, who have both been through quite a bit in their lives. But, conceived from all this carnage was a new being, Vismund Cygnus, who is a fictional character, with characteristics of both of them, and who is the protagonist of this here story.


Twenty five wives in the lake tonight
Raw bark in the water of the marble shrine

The twenty five wives represent twenty five significant relationships. It ties in with the number riddle in FTM. I think the sense of it is that he has tested these twenty five with "the flood" (the effects of the drug abuse and his emotional problems resulting from the abuse), and nineteen of them sank, which is to say, he can't really trust them, they failed the test. Six swam, which is to say, they passed the test, and were deemed people he could trust. Of these six, one is dead, and that one is Cygnus (Miranda will soon prophesy Cygnus' death, but just like the song's namesake Cassandra, and just like his family before, his words will go unheeded and unbelieved, and the prophecy will be fulfilled).


Twenty five snakes pour out your eyes
Yeah the icepicks cumming on the marble shrine
Twenty five snakes are drowning

The 25 snakes are the dysfunction inside him that poisons the relationships -- and are the means by which he tests people.


You can't bend your crooked arms or fold your punctured proof
The air is growing cold and there's nothing you can do

Cygnus is so caught up in this addiction to finding his family, and to drugs, that he's on a collision course with destiny, and there's no way out. This is Miranda's prophecy.


Soon there'll be no gauze, inside the confessional
Only rows of crows, defrocking every breath

Soon, presumably in death, the veils will be stripped from Cygnus' eyes, and all will be revealed, and this sacred vision Cygnus obsesses over will be seen as the bullsh*t it always has been.


And one day you'll remember
Behind the melting cones,
You always had a family
In the burial of your home.

One day, when all is said and done, Cygnus will realize that Miranda is his real family, not these phantoms he's wasted every minute and every thought pursuing.


I'll peel back all of my skin
Peel back and let it all run

Points to Miranda's propensity for cutting himself as a means of coping with the abuse, but also suggests stripping off his costume, which is to say, revealing himself as Cygnus' twin, as if Cygnus has been looking in a mirror the whole time.


No there's no light, no there's no time
You ain't got nothing, your life was just a lie.

There's no light, no time, etc. because he wasted his life clinging to the past he knew nothing about instead of embracing the people that loved him in the present, and now he's dead.

great Job..!