Fewer Afraid

(album: Illusory Walls - 2021)

Some things I once swore were etched into my brain have disintegrated like tape decay
Echoes crack through, but the sounds mix with others
They were there though once
Unlike the phantom bruise from the lover's punch
Which I knew the next day would be tender to the touch, but wasn't
In the darkened mirror on the day Toni died, finger pressed to cheek
Expecting it to collapse like the softest part of a rotten peach
I've sometimes borne the brunt of a lover's pain spilling out
And some lessons I've learned past due
And others unfairly bore the weight
The calluses on my hands never were from praying, by the way
Though my mother would cross herself when she kissed me goodnight
And whisper at her mother's grave when she dropped me at the school
She was buried one parking space and a fence away from the playground
Where I first learned what it meant when your body is a nesting doll
And somewhere inside is the end
No, the calluses were from the palms split at the seams, violence made to please and harden
They have made and unmade rooms, been broken open in destruction and repurposed in creation
Once, they held a set of hands too small to even intertwine fingers
And taught it to write their name
Made ourselves into robots by putting shopping baskets on our heads
And painted our lips to become mirrors
She spent a summer sleeping in the bed I slept on at her age
Her name for me, a pedal tone to all I do now
Returning and returning
Escape just requires a key
Mahmoud was right
Sometimes jail keepers beg for their freedom from those who they've held captive
And sometimes we are dynamite
I miss the one whose skin was the same as mine
I miss the one who gave me my name
I am guilty and repentant of so many things
I am absolved and unrepentant of so many others
These hands that once held theirs would like to be of use
The memories of what they can do have not faded
They split my palms and yours to take something precious from us
That we don't have words for anymore
But we try and find it anyway
Exhausted, trying to shield our eyes
From the glare of all the violence bouncing off more violence
To try and make sense of the world, violence made for those who plan our obsolescence
These hands would like to be of use with yours
Somewhere, a hand split from making ends meet
Somewhere, another, seams in all our bodies bursting
They split my palms and yours, but when we sutured each other, we hid keys in those wounds
Inside others, dynamite
Inside others, thread and needle
Safety found together in planned obstinance, absolved and unrepentant

When we learned to grow food to eat near the end of our time
Life winks and nods at us with roles to assign
First, all plants and animals, excluding mankind
Will be shuttled like astronauts, so just form a line

Good people must hurry on
Get as far as you can
Make computers and alcohol
Soon, we'll talk again

Carpets were cleaner then to sit and relax
Now there's streets and apartments and a federal tax
Explosions in Sago versus trailer park labs
Making homemade insulin with what little they have

Treat "Killing an Arab" with SSRIs
Short-selling coffins, kick sand in our eyes
So just draw funny pictures of people in suits
Grown men using toothpicks to poke at the truth

Belief in conspiracy, illusory walls
The world is disgusting, but truth in it all
Hang what I say to you on the magneted fridge
And cut all the curses you said in front of kids

Come fifty years after now, with a limitless globe
The terror of savagery, now you're coming back home

Come off and fall so that I can pick you up
Our homes are not the kinds of places you'd own

Come off and fall so that I can pick you up
Our homes are not the kinds of places you'd own

Come off and fall so that I can pick you up

The objects
We're locked in, immobile and violent
Just fewer like that
You were afraid

The objects
We're locked in, immobile and violent
Just fewer like that
You were afraid
(They rose and shook, I barely stood)
(They rose and shook the blood off)

The objects
We're locked in, immobile and violent
Just fewer like that
You were afraid
(They rose and shook, I barely stood)
(They rose and shook the blood off)

It seems the last forty minutes were spent leading up to this
You're just a stranger in a T-shirt to me
Time wore holes in my memory
What have you given just to be able to get closer
To being alive with nothing left, but this song and the end of it?

You believe in something watching over
I think they have a sick sense of humor
As quickly as it happens, they forget
Then it happens again and again and again and again

You cry at the news, I just turn it off
They say there's nothing we can do and it never stops
You believe in a god watching over
I think the world's fucked up and brutal
Senseless violence with no guiding light
I can't live like this, but I'm not ready to die

You believe in something watching over
I think they have a sick sense of humor
As quickly as it happens, they forget
Then it happens again and again and again and again

You cry at the news, I just turn it off
They say there's nothing we can do and it never stops
You believe in a god watching over
I think the world's fucked up and brutal
Senseless violence with no guiding light
I can't live like this, but I'm not ready to die

The world is a beautiful place, but we have to make it that way
Whenever you find home, we'll make it more than just a shelter
If everyone belongs there, it will hold us all together
If you're afraid to die, then so am I

The world is a beautiful place, but we have to make it that way
Whenever you find home, we'll make it more than just a shelter
If everyone belongs there, it will hold us all together
If you're afraid to die, then so am I

The world is a beautiful place, but we have to make it that way
Whenever you find home, we'll make it more than just a shelter
If everyone belongs there, it will hold us all together
If you're afraid to die, then so am I

The world is a beautiful place, but we have to make it that way
Whenever you find home, we'll make it more than just a shelter
If everyone belongs there, it will hold us all together
If you're afraid to die, then so am I