when your native tongue/ain’t your default language anymore/and the words you remember/don’t rhyme like they did before/silence is falling but they’re finding a song/they can’t understand why you don’t sing along/and the house has gone black/and it’s not safe outside/eternity in your heart/but you’re translating a lie/all your life but you now see the danger/like sleeping every night with the same stranger/i am still much too young of a man/building ramparts in a wasteland/so much of my kingdom: it still needs to end/the waves are breaking over us here/but we won’t be any safer/higher up on shifting sand/rows of green army men/they said they would be true/stick close as blood /and fight your battles for you/but they don’t tread lightly in our shoes/all their answers you already knew/and your mercy comes/crying compassion with a vengeance/but here’s what’s left of Pompeii/and here is a dustpan/the ocean is bleeding; here are your two hands/all your writing hasn’t done much to mend it/chorus/it may not be poetry but there’s truth in prose/she may not be pretty/but you still gave her a rose/we may feel no wiser/twenty years down the road/this old world is healing/but we need to die to see it made whole/the waves are breaking over us here/but we won’t be any safer/the waves have all been drowning me, dear/but we won’t be any safer/your waves are gonna drown me, my dear/but we won’t be any safer/higher up on shifting sand

Hannah Hubin & Wild Harbors