I want to live for the future Built out of hard things and soldered with love. Hope is a river that’s swollen. They melted the ice down with fear in god and eyelashes. Ashes to ashes Dust on the curtains cling. Long as my heart beats Wring my hands and march my feet. I want to be there I want to see it with my own eyes I want to live for the future Chiseled in our hearts with all the pain that might still come. Learning to give what’s not easy; Blessings are shared like the naked dandelion’s seeds. Hidden in voiceless is all the help we need. Long as my heart beats I’ll follow hopelessness with dreams.

To be cut off at the boot strap is to have a dust bowl in the sink. She’s washing up after avarice had a bit too much to drink. Ceiling obsidian while the walls tell her to fly free. Contradiction America all she wants is your dream. Red is the color of the traffic sign that she obeyed. White is the skin she served and blue is disillusionment’s way. She is stricken made tired by a future expired after tasting the spoon. it's hard to get out of bed. The cold gets into her head. Gotta leave the cocoon. To be cut off of the road map is to have a long journey ahead. Picture time in a traffic light, picture her face washed in red. Hold her hand futilely as the wind's ripping up her picket fence. When she tried to warn avarice he just showed her his bank statements. Red is the fire burning underneath the bags of her eyes. Blue is the calm of the storm and white are the hallowed lies Her Great-Grandfather came with only hope to his name. Why is she not the same? Feeling shrunken inside is it the head or the drive that catches her blame To be… Ooo and it doesn’t get easy, but you learn how to breathe and you find some good people to hang on. Ooo I wana reach out my hand like a vine to the quicksand. Yeah we’ve got a pretty good plan. Let's put the cart before the horse. We’ll reassess what things are worth cause we ain’t got much to lose by doing things a new way. We ain't got much to gain by doing things the right way, the old way. To be cut off at the boot strap is to be fenced-in to a change. Wake up to a world transformed telling you "you're not to blame"

I was born in the rubble of the Berlin wall, when the future had just opened up and the politicians stalled. As a child looked to my mother, asked her: "How should I behave?" For my fathers dug the trenches and the maker made its grave. Late last night I saw the beating of my nation like a slave. All the windows filled with tears, but there was no one we could blame. There’s a struggle in our heartbreaks, it’s all tangled up in love. Silver linings seeping tarnish after when you polish them with blood. I was born in the rubble of the Berlin wall, when our innocence had failed us and the politicians stalled. We cannot be forgiven for the things we haven’t done when our hands are all we’re missing to begin to beat the drum. There’s a struggle in our heartbreaks it’s all tangled up in love. Silver linings just seep tarnish when you polish them with blood. Where is will if not in outrage? where is change? what is enough? Like my mother used to tell me, fight the fights you can’t give up.

I’ve been picking at the bones of freedom struggles come and gone looking for a starting point that that doesn’t disappoint someone tomorrow is the path that wraps itself around past failures listens long to their confessions with gratitude and salt salt salt let us sing let us sing: When we started to fight we fought for all the wrong reasons We mistook need for change as a lesson chalked it up to God’s will When we started to fight we had to make sure we didn’t sound crazy we guarded those too hard too hear realities with morals and cup cakes and you’ll call me a white girl who plays sad guitar. And I am trying very hard at not presuming who you are. When we started to fight we fought with dulled instruments of oppression we fought by candlelit ink wells of guilt this cabin we built we didn’t build windows. When we started to fight we didn’t know how to look at each other. We still don’t know how to look at each other: the other. our nineteenth century dreams were patronizingly simple And now it’s been 200 years only if imagination serves. We can change the world rearrange the world is dying to get better When we started to fight we didn’t know how to be allies we named ourselves Generals but where the real battles lied we had no idea. well there’s wrong and there’s and then there the things that we do when we’re trying. but there’s no excuse and there’s no denying we don’t always get better And we have been blessed with a life full of privileges and we have been blessed with a belt full of tools and we are only starting to fight to fight we are only starting

And if the truth were really true how would we act? what would we do? Is there a door we must fall through before we recognize what is the truth? And since the truth is really true how will we act? what will we do? Will we collect our frightened tears to scatter on the droughted fields? Will we blow hard—blow with the wind and watch the mills spin round our sins? or will we dance? or will we pray? or will we learn to live another way? I think it’s clear we don’t believe in what is true: our frailty. Integrity means that we live—live like the truth were what it is.

Self-reflection didn’t steal my car keys. Objectivity like a friend or a disease. My heart still squeezes, but it beats like treason through my knees. Run across the boarder to where the simple sound of industry is tamed. You have a job I wouldn’t take but you’ve gotta take it all the same. When the morning wails, and I wake up stale I still haven’t rearranged. I made a promise that’s grown strange. “Introspection heals the world.” They say, so write me a soliloquy to unbind me from my ways. I want to pray. Like Moses prayed I want the chance to run away A cog alive, a cog enslaved. Implicate me in my lazy sin. Self-aware and terrified I want to begin. I want to begin. I want to begin to see outside the engine. Rummage through the rubbish mountain tumble down the hills I threw away. Plastic rains Poseidon weeps and the air is getting thicker every day. When excess fails to swell the sails I’ll mar myself to you. There was so much more to do. Self-reflection didn’t steal my car keys. Some sense of gravity won’t bring me to my knees. My will like reeds Bends in the breeze this is not easy. This is not easy. This is not easy.

Won’t you give me your hand cause I need a savior And I don’t understand how Jesus works. If I could believe in something it would be the rising sun, But I’ve heard about the winters way up north. And on my peace-less planet I paint murals in my bones Of a darkness as it stretches towards the light. And all things equal I think I would like to start again with naming all the creatures and the boarders and the sins Cause all things given to us are so hard to comprehend In dreams sometimes I glimpse them just before they round the bend There’s a lamb and a lion and the persuasive things they said There’s a plow tilling fast behind a war horse There are children holding hands praying for me to understand But I don’t I still don’t and I can’t. They say -blessed are the house-less when our hearts become our homes- With velvet pulsing curtains and a ceiling fan that moan Cradled in the difference between dreams and coming true Is you taking my hand like we saw the children do. Carry off my expectations for the things I cannot change Save me the loss of my patience and bless me through my blame If god is in the future and hope is in the rain With our hands griped tight together we’ll put one foot in front of the other If you give me your hand then I’ll be your savior And Friend we’ll walk a long way like that a long way like that

Pick your battles like you pick your mistakes. Tie your horses up where they wont mind the wait. If you have to ask then it's gonna be okay. You pick your battles like you pick your mistakes. Oh you’ve spread yourself thin with your oil slick passion across the water. And you’d better believe there is no immunity to wanting power. count your footprints humbly or they'll stop you in your tracks. See if you can feel the beauty of letting someone else take up the slack. Pick your battles like you pick your mistakes. Tie your horses up where they wont mind the wait No, you wont have time to do everything right so pick your battles and fight with your life. What are your most precious things? Like every other politician, you'd better count them. You’ve got a preachable patch of overgrown grass to hide your face in You’re not taking questions. No, you’re not just making friends. It’s not clear what the lesson is when you run to win and then you’ve won to run again. You pick your battles like you pick your mistakes. Tie your horses up where they wont mind the wait. No, you wont have time to do everything right so pick your battles and fight for your life.

Sleeping with the status-quo, between the sheets and the need to grow there’s a knock on the door is there still a knot in my throat anymore? In the morning I woke to the refuse of culture: the shell and the yoke there beside me I noticed how only self-hating loves something that’s broke. I don’t know how courage grows fed by disillusion and soul. Revolution wasn’t bred in my bones I drank milk from the breast of the hopeful. In the evening I spoke with the echoes of goddess that clamor and choke. I've got to pacify all the lines I wrote; send them up in the signals of smoke. If I’d been born in a back logged town where the girls grow like corn, I would have worn my head like a heart on the sleeve of my soul shorn. Sleeping with the status-quo, my unconflicted dreams let him go. I awoke in his room. Ambiguity wrestled me over the moon. I want courage like doubt. I want tears from the sky like the rain in my mouth. I’m gonna count my bruises and never look back. I’m moving out to the count civil-rights soundtrack. We shall overcome. I don’t know how courage grows fed by disillusion and soul. Revolution wasn’t bred in my bones I drank milk from the breast of the hopeful.