A bishop makes his plea,
And we watch,
Enraptured,
While he speaks a language more foreign than Latin.
"The statute of limitations has expired," says he,
While terrified middle-aged men look on,
Comforted by their wives,
Or mothers,
But their eyes are the frightened eyes
Of a child.

How is it that you can still attempt to protect them,
Excellency?
Do we account for nothing?
Do you miss having the right to shuffle them off,
From one community to the next,
Creating new horror stories as they go?
How is it that I matter to you,
Or do I?
I certainly cannot answer that question,
For we have not spoken,
And I know not whether you even share my world.

"Tell them again, the story,"
Said Adolph, in another time and place.
Tell them over and over again,
And soon the reality will change.
It's been too long,
For matters of the spirit
To be adequately recalled.
Question the veracity of their visions,
And admit to nothing,
And soon this too will pass.

They have never slept with my dreams,
The ones that they have altered for all time.
And there are no drugs to blunt
The filthiness within them.
And my dreams mutate,
Like a wicked virus,
And the venom grows more deadly,
As I see them still in control,
Of everything;
The way it has always been.

We were given over unto them,
In another place and time,
By parents who wanted a little discipline,
And not the rape
That their children got instead.
A sacred trust has been broken,
And the trail of tears
Has been covered with lies,
And terrified men in their forties,
Look at life
Through a fifth grader's eyes.

Put an end to the madness!
It happened,
I think we all know that.
Don't stifle the truth with deception,
Or the church will,
Found to be rotten at the core.
Put an end to the madness!
Let us all just get on with our lives,
And maybe someday, just maybe,
We won't have to look at life,
Through a tainted fifth grader's eyes.