She says we're going to have a renaissance, I thought, of what though? Of consciousness, of livelihood, at least she hopes so. I didn't say about that dream I had, or did it happen? The voice that said, "look to the east, there is an omen" No snow on the mountain top, the creek bed that's just dirt and rock I read a book that said embrace the hopelessness when things fall apart only trouble is no one wants to live with a broken heart He said the past was a horrid place and to be grateful to be born in an era like this, less grim and hateful Buried inside, there's truth there to keep us faithful to every lie that lets us sleep, but what will we wake to? The endless wars we don't know how to stop No charges for another white cop open your heart and mind, the anger's rising, hope it don't stop we're all gonna play a part whether we act or not We live in a world that ranked itself first when it got wealthy extracting death, yet they're expecting a happy ending What will you do with this one life you are granted? If we only knew, is it delusion or enchantment?

I think we were bonded by our disdain for so many things Oh tell me we were fond of other things about each other Eventually I couldn't move with your judgement weighing down on me so I set it down. I broke a tooth and my long fast eating the hardest truth about you. Well what did it say about me? Cut branches blooming in the burn piles of the Spring something's still living but starved for meaning as the world spoon fed us grief, we swallowed so we could speak and so we wore our rage on our sleeves, badge of honor we believed the uniform we put on unknowingly proud of all we couldn't do wearing a straitjacket of identity Couldn't move. All those contradictions pulling from both sides We had to break our arms and our ties over that binary affliction that held our hearts and minds. We thought that we were hard but what good is hard if you won't complicate it with being compassionate?

Meet your needs, or don't. But do not make them my deficits This force field is a sacred place, swallow the blame you want to spit When creatures crawl out past the edge they're exposed to a kind of radiation. It's isolation, the worlds created in your head cold planets that spin in their stations and the fission of self derision, that orbit you can't seem to break just dragging you through the conditions Stop talking. Or try speaking differently. Possess the words and set them free but don't pre-masticate them for me. remember to breathe, remember your physicality your body and voice move through space and they're colliding terribly with the abstractions. The stunning distractions nebula bloom in your mind in harsh contractions the narration of constellations you always thought were guiding you now they offer no consolation It's radiation, the isolation, the worlds created in your head cold planets that spin in their stations and the fission of self derision, that orbit you can't seem to break just dragging you through the conditions and the abstractions. The stunning distractions nebula bloom in your mind in harsh contractions the narration of constellations you always thought were guiding you now they offer no consolation

The feeling makes itself known without wearing words but we have to say something someday, we can't just navigate following breadcrumbs and birds, our assumptions we could get lost in all those curves, all the things gone unsaid so...find the well spring compass needle trembling from the force with which you are searching look for the shallow pool, but it runs deeper than you ever would imagine when you first become the seeker You'll be thirsty. Inner worlds, uninterrupted plains of false stability there are cliffs and valleys that will surprise you all that beautiful danger you never knew was there inside you, just waiting When lost we need the birds eye view to show us where we are but that means learning how to see through eyes not our own the shape-shifting is empathy and means the destruction of the self that wants to be back on the ground just stuck in safe skin Don't bury me in that early grave of vanity, of petty jealousy that's a shallow puddle you could drown in and your own reflection will pull you right in I see you struggling, you could stand up and walk out if you could only see you're in a shallow puddle, and those undertows are illusory

Settlers granted stolen land to work Cheap labor loyal enough to trust them with the dirt They'll borrow for the seeds and tools from the banks 'til all that blooms is a trap of debt in which they'd be guaranteed to lose and their contention would be that people need to eat so growing food should compensate But their dispossession only echoed that of those who they were willing to displace Craftspeople possessed a lifetime of their craft masters of their own livelihood that could last but Capital (the idle men who hoard the coin) they didn't write such autonomy into their design and their obsession with the efficiency of factories to make themselves wealthy made this dispossession stripped us of the skills after which we named our families Farm workers in 2017 still are fighting for basic dignities How would you like to work for 12 hours in a day in the sun without a break just to get cheated out of pay It's a reflection of the heart of our society when we look the other way from this dispossession, calls the indigenous immigrants they're afraid of being detained. What's the lesson? When the people raising kids and growing food can barely sustain? It's a confession, capitalism's a failure so something's gotta change It's gotta change

You can cross the continent but the troubles and the dreams have a way of following walking to the highway to get a ride laughing cuz I'm getting laughed at by road construction guys looking like the fool right off the card fucked up haircut with my thumb out and a skittish dog thinking I get along with everyone just cuz they'll drop their confession on a stranger riding shotgun That's why the thistle grows there in the gravel by the on-ramp where so few would travel to get close to finding out through what droughts you could live growing wild roots through all this artifice Spend a decade in a town knowing you might never be more than invasive weed all the people struggling just so they can stay can't stop dreaming of the day I finally blow away we spent so long getting stable planting the garden, setting our table If we sit there with our feet itching to run it's cuz what we're really hungry for is a place we belong That's why the thistle grows in between concrete that's why we walk everyday down that street to get close to one who knows how prickly we get Trying to grow our roots through all this artifice Do we move through time or is it time flowing through us with the blood lines? Animated our ancestors, now it's making us move with the rhythm of the tide's turn Turning on the moon's strict schedule Picking up where the last crisis left us, and you'll be one of many standing on the shore praying to the horizon that time would flow backwards That's why the thistle grows down by the water barbed wire around our makeshift altars Kneel down and find out how thirsty we could get trying to find our roots in all this artifice

I'd say I can't believe that you are gone but it wouldn't quite be true Truth is you were sick and old, and it's a miracle any of us make it as long as we do, but you had a way of outrunning your doom You had the scars to prove death is the shadow of a bright afternoon In my dream you were there, suddenly appeared in the room Reach for the seam, touch the place where dreams and waking life bleed into each other The sewing tight, the tearing out Stitches where we were bound together The holding on, the letting go Follow the paw prints through griefs snow Whole heart saying no still I go towards the dimmest glow The sewing tight, the tearing out Stitches where we were bound together The holding on, the letting go Tracks filling in with new snow