Once there was a symbol I saw as hope; a cape

A cape that flowed across the broken city scape

But my own life cut from the trapeze

And both the green and the black cape where put on much too late

Wearing my own it was hard to believe it stood for hope and not hate

He claims it's justice, that it's fighting for a city he believes in

To save it from the tragedy of those masked in shadow and sin

But after feeling the same loss, after looking my own killer in the face

I know he's a liar, that it's all a charade

The cape was black for a reason, black for hate. Not for crimes own personal parade

The hate; not the money, not the fame, not the right

Not the law or the system, the hate makes you fight

It fuels the stand up, the kicks and the growth of a bullet filled side

It makes the machines in the hospital keep beeping by

It was the hate that lifted you up and allowed you to fly

But if you weren't careful, the hate could snag on a scrapper

It could rip at your wing, and you would be the martyred crusader

It could pull off the cowl, in the most unpleasant of ways

It could leave a pounding in your breaking heart and open head

It could swallow the scales, the yellow green and red

It could tear at the symbol till all color drained

Till sweat and till tears all mixed as it rained

It could break open the armor

It could make you madder than venom spray

And cause twice the pain as the mask you wore in the day

Hate drives what you do, what I do too

Though you can't let it take over, you can't let it control you

Because hate only leads to the fate you faced, now forced on others; all it does is force a repeat

You can't let it deceive, and play games as well as the clown

For madness and its counterpart are not defined by whacked stretched smiles and cowl covered frowns

Forcing a repeat, of what fate already knew was a mistake

I left, two died, and the other moved away; all of us gone due to fate

All of us gone in one form or another, some forever others just a call

But he doesn't hear that, not even from me

Or I guess I hope it's a clue he missed, one he didn't see

He's only been dead a few months now, barely long enough to morn,

I know I'll look up and see the same costume I once had worn

And I'll watch as the grin stretches like madness

For the clown's right he really is mad to lie to his hope for his hate

I'll watch and wonder how fast of a rate will be made by the inescapable cape's fate

But besides all of that

Alfred only knows how many more dead robins, Bruce can take