Trauma

(album: Twelve Nudes - 2019)

What makes a girl start a fire in the hall
Leave a lipstick scrawl on the bathroom mirror?
She won't settle for a pile of scrap metal
While you work the gas pedal and let another man steer
She takes her time as authorities arrive
Going out for a smoke in the empty back lot
She sees the world she imagined as a girl
As a lottery ticket for a phoney jackpot

Years roll on and we still have not dealt with our trauma
Years roll on and we still have not looked at our sins

What makes a man take a hammer in his hand
Shatter every last window of the company store
At 3 am with the furies back again
Now it's him against them in a personal war
The mind snaps and economies collapse
When the one who works hardest gets the smallest reward
The big scam is nobody gives a damn
That the penthouse suite depends on the bottom three floors

And I know how hard you've been working
We all know somebody who's been killed
We hold power though it's only for the hour
Let the ivory tower know the power we wield
They know we got 'em and empire's in its autumn
When it's built from the bottom and the bottom won't build

Years roll on and they still have not dealt with our trauma
Years roll on and they still have not looked at their sins