The barren wastes, bearing down on me.[i] Cracks in the clouds leave me wondering: Did the oceans dry out and return to the sky, for a privileged perspective of our final goodbye?
Pretend it's a house of peace while she's buried underneath. You built your Father's house over my mother's grave.[ii]
Bodies - a mass grave collapse the concave floor. These sanctimonious steeples will meet us in the dirt. Because the earth is trembling,[iii] if only we had eyes to see it shake. Ignorant until we expire.
When the ocean fills our veins and the soil becomes my bones:[iv] Maybe we'll fall asleep tonight to the madness in the melody poured out for slaves.
We were dressed in potential now we're draped in sorrow.
Our race is a bloodstain spattered on a profane political campaign - manifest your destiny. Stripes and stars comprise my prison bars - the cost of liberty.[v]
Maybe we'll fall asleep tonight to the madness in the melody poured out for slaves. Maybe this storm is a perfect score for wretched bodies washed ashore, poured out for me.[vi]
The life I loved looking up at me: saplings struck like daggers hemorrhaging streams as the breath of my people return to the ground[vii] so forests can once more abound.
The suffering cross that overcame,[viii] the name of Love made concurrent with shame.
This melody - I thought it familiar it sounds like your heartbeat keeping time,[ix] then you turn and remind me that this pain has a purpose. And maybe we'll fall asleep tonight.






Behind the Song:
[i] South Dakota badlands
[ii] Indian Removal Act of 1830
[iii] Proverbs 30:21
[iv] Inspired by a quote attributed to Chief Seattle of the Suquamish tribe
[v] The Dawes Act of 1887
[vi] Matthew 5:45
[vii] Psalm 146:4
[viii] Christus Victor
[ix] *irregular – JLW