Human
Aftermath

My neighbor's loading kids into the car seats Kids are late and coffee's going cold Somewhere in a polished room of flags Men decide what lives are worth in gold A mechanic wipes his hands on denim A nurse ties back her hair again And none of them were asked about the fire Before it came rolling in They call it strategy and duty Like that makes the bodies less But it's always someone else's daughter Always someone else's chest While they draw the lines We are standing in the store Trying to buy bread, trying to make rent Trying to keep one family more And they talk like history chose them Like the dead were just the price But no one asks the ones down here beneath them How much blood is worth a life A father picks his daughter up from school Checks his phone and suddenly goes cool Because another smiling face Has found a cleaner word for bombs The streets are full of working people Bent beneath the ordinary load And none of them say, “Please let my taxes Help turn another kid to smoke” They call it order, call it justice Call it peace through strength But peace has never looked like rubble Or mothers clawing at the sand While they draw the lines We are standing in the pharmacy Counting pills, counting hours Counting what we cannot keep And they talk like history needs them Like no one else can steer the wheel But history's mostly people bleeding While power calls it something real I don't believe the war machine is holy I don't believe it speaks for me It's built on distance, built on titles Built on lives they'll never see A woman folds a uniform in silence A boy goes quiet at the news And somewhere else the cameras catch applause For men who'll never wear those shoes Let the bakers bake, let the drivers drive Let the teachers teach, let the tired survive Let the children sleep, let the old men rest Stop feeding the poor to the well-dressed While they draw the lines We are burying what they never knew We are sweeping glass, we are holding hands We are living what they pushed us through And maybe one day there'll be enough of us Who'll say your maps don't own our breath You don't get to spend the poor on battles Then call it an honorable death We were busy being human You were busy feeding death We were busy being human You were busy drawing lines.

Your mother cried in a different language Mine did too when the sirens came Your father held what he couldn't carry Mine still shakes when he hears those names We draw our lines like they're made of iron Like God came down and signed each side But dirt don't care what flag is over it And grief don't check who's right or wrong A child is a child in any country A hand is a hand when it's reaching out And pain don't stop at the border crossing Just keeps going house to house We are the same blood, same breaking hearts Same empty beds in the dark Same prayers climb from shattered homes Same silence when they don't come home And war keeps feeding war till someone drops the sword And looks in the eye of the so-called enemy And sees themselves from the start We are the same blood, we just forgot Every ruin used to be somebody's morning Coffee on and shoes by the door Every name they turned into a number Was someone the whole world for And every bomb makes more believers In vengeance, ashes, and cold revenge Till pain becomes our family business Passed hand to hand again and again But a child is a child in any country And a tear is a tear on any face No one wins when the dead pile higher And no one heals by trading pain 'Cause we are the same blood, same breaking hearts Same empty beds in the dark Same prayers climb from shattered homes Same silence when they don't come home And war keeps feeding war till somebody drops the sword And looks in the eyes of the so-called enemy And sees themselves from the start We are the same blood, we just forgot So who will be the one to end The old lie passed from kin to kin? Who will say no more, not mine Not in my name and not this time? Let mercy be the thing we hand down Let dignity be louder than now Let every stranger still be holy Even when we're told they're not 'Cause we are the same blood, the same breaking hearts Same trembling under the stars Same mothers fall to their knees Same fathers begging heaven please And war keeps feeding war till somebody shuts the door Who stands in the fire of inherited hate And says it dies with me tonight We are the same blood, you and I You and I, you and I We are the same blood, we just forgot.

They pinned a ribbon on in silence, hung a photo in the hall Said, “Be proud, your father's home,” like that explained it all But he came back in one piece mostly, just the parts you couldn't see Something followed him behind him and sat down with me He'd go on staring through the television at a war no one else could hear Ice clinking like a warning signal in a glass of borrowed years Mama learned to speak in weather: “Looks like storms tonight” And I'd learned how to read the level by the bottle and his eyes No, he didn't die in the jungle, no trumpet, flag, or salute He died inch by inch in the kitchen with the whole war in his roots Yeah, the war cost me my daddy years after they let him back It slept beside him and drank beside him and turned his insides black Every medal shining in the hallway could not save what it cut through No, the war cost me my daddy long after the fighting was through Some nights he'd call out numbers, some poor boy's name, then go still Like he was counting up the missing or swallowing the kill He was mean in all the wounded places, tender in a few he could And I hate the war for what it did to him, and I hate it more for loving me Because I saw the man beneath it in the mornings when he'd shake Trying hard to glue the pieces before another break He'd say, “Son, don't learn my silence,” then pour another inch of black Like he knew the house was burning but he couldn't find the back No, he didn't die in the jungle, no folded flag could tell the truth He died with all that shrapnel in him no doctor could ever remove No, the war cost me my daddy long after the fighting was through And the papers called him lucky because he made it back But nobody counts slow collisions when the souls go off track So don't tell me victory is sacred when children learn to tiptoe pain And mothers wash glasses softly, praying they'll come back sane He came home breathing, he came home burned He came home drinking, he came home hurt He came home with shadows, he came home mean He came home dying right in front of me The war cost me my daddy, not in the field but in our home In slammed doors and shaking hands and nights that rattled to the bone If you want the price of battle, don't just count the dead Count the ones who kept on breathing till the war came through in them He never left that battlefield, he just took off his boots And it walked in slow behind him till it drank him from his roots.

I woke up with the headlines buzzing like a live wire in the wall Made some coffee, fed the dog, and acted like I felt nothing at all The sky was blue in a suspicious way, the kind that makes you check the news And everybody's smiling at the red light like they all learned how to lose So we put our keys into the ignition, put our names into another day Carry all this dread like groceries and pray the bag doesn't break We wake up and pretend We don't know what's coming and when Go to work, answer emails, laugh Like the floor ain't paper-thin And every hour feels so borrowed Every plan feels written in sand But we still kiss our loved ones And do the best that we can A woman at the checkout asked me, “How you doing?” with that face That says please don't tell the truth here, I've got enough on my plate And the man behind me joked about the weather while doom scrolled across my phone It's funny how the world can end so loudly and still leave us feeling all alone So we fold our fears into our jackets, keep our hands busy and neat 'Cause the bills will still keep coming even when history's at the door We wake up and pretend we don't know what's coming and when Make the bed, pick up the call, and nod like it all still makes some sense And every day feels so weighty, like it's leaning on our chest But nobody's handing out a roadmap, just another sunrise and test And maybe this is how the spirit fractures Not in a fire, but a daily disguise In the practiced art of small talk With apocalypse behind our eyes And maybe courage isn't shouting Maybe it's staying kind somehow Maybe it's holding on to each other While the future won't say how So we wake up and pretend till pretending feels like skin Still make lunch, still wash dishes, still let ordinary life begin And if the dark is coming, let it find us loving who we can Let it find us telling one another we were here and we gave a damn I woke up with the headlines buzzing and somehow still got out of bed Maybe that's its own rebellion: to live while you're living scared.

They found a way to sell the fire without the smoke, without the blame Wrapped it up in noble language, fed it to us all the same Communist, fascist, woke—words they toss like loaded stones Not to say a damn thing clearly, just to make us divided at home They know exactly where to hit us, fear's the oldest switch in town Get us pointing at each other while the real hands write it down Trigger words and tidy slogans, little sparks in thirsty rooms Turn us on each other quickly so no one sees who's selling doom They don't need the truth, just reaction, just enough rage to cloud the view Keep the poor and scared all fighting while the well-dressed push us through And freedom's just another product when the cameras frame it just right Justice gets a facelift nightly before they roll it out at nine Patriot, traitor, threat, invader—every label built to sting None of it meant to make us wiser, all of it made to make us swing And every time we take the bait, another lie gets dressed as fact Another family learns to hate some ghost they never even met Trigger words and tidy slogans, little sparks in thirsty rooms Turn us on each other quickly so no one sees who's selling doom They don't need the truth, just reaction, just enough rage to cloud the view Keep the poor and scared all fighting while the well-dressed push us through Say the word and watch us tighten, watch our faces lose their shape Watch us stop being neighbors and start becoming useful hate That's the trick, it's always simple: make the wound and outrun the mind Keep us busy naming enemies, never who designed the lie Red words, blue words, cold words, new words Old fears, same game, different suit and different name Trigger words and tidy slogans, fed to us like daily bread Till we're too busy turning sideways to see who's aiming at our heads And every time they stir the panic and every time they split the room Somebody powerful gets richer and somebody ordinary gets consumed We were not born hating strangers We were taught which words to hear And who to fear when they were spoken Till fear itself became sincere We were not born hating strangers We were just taught to fear.

You were raised on your side of the river I was raised to stay on mine Different prayers and different pictures Different versions of who's right We were handed names for strangers Before we ever knew their face Taught to build our homes from distance And call the walls a kind of grace But I've seen mothers cry in every language I've seen fathers break the same And pain does not care where you're standing When it comes and says your name So cross the line, come shake these fences Let's see what love can do Lay down the words that keep us guarded Long enough to make it through There is no peace in staying strangers There is no safety in the lie That your hurt is not my burden Or your child's tears are not like mine Maybe we've been taught the wrong inheritance Fear dressed up in family clothes Maybe mercy starts when somebody Stops pretending they don't know Every wound passed hand to hand Grows another fence, another flame Till somebody looks across the damage And refuses to play the game Because a uniform can't hide a heartbeat And a flag can't bury grief And no one gets out clean from hatred Even when they call it peace So cross the line, come shake these fences Let's see what love can do Lay down the words that keep us guarded Long enough to make it through There is no peace in staying strangers There is no safety in the lie That your hurt is not my burden Or your child's tears are not like mine Maybe the bravest thing is not winning Maybe it's walking unarmed Maybe the holiest ground we'll stand on Is where we choose not to do harm Maybe the world does not get gentler Till somebody opens up their hand Till somebody trades their pride for seeing And says, “You're human, that's enough to stand” So cross the line, come shake these fences Let the old lies fall apart There is no war that isn't fed first By the borders in the heart And if we're going to leave our children Anything that matters when we die Let it be less fear, more table Less division, more reply You were never my enemy, not the way they said We were just two human beings trying to get home again We were just two human beings trying to get home again.

I learned real young to read the room before anyone said a word Who was angry, who was drinking, who might leave, who might hurt I got good at staying useful, good at never needing much Good at watching every doorway and good at not asking for love I became the steady heartbeat, the one who always had a plan The one who saw the worst coming and did what no one else can I'm always the strong one, always the one who stays on guard Always the one who sees it coming and takes the hit before it starts I know how to keep everyone safe, I know how to hold it all somehow Nobody sees the cost of living like disaster's breaking out right now I play every possible ending before the phone has even rung I know where everyone is standing and I know which version leaves me numb I can function and I can work, I can smile and keep things clean I can carry everyone's fears so well that it looks like strength But being good in an emergency doesn't mean the emergency left It means my body learned to live with it without a single breath I'm always the strong one, always the one who doesn't fall Always the one who keeps it moving like it doesn't hurt at all I know how to make myself useful, I know how to make it never hide But no one knows how much it takes to live in this tense called calm People think because I'm coping that it isn't heavy anymore But coping just means I got skilled at dragging it across the floor And I don't always need rescuing, but sometimes I need to be seen Not as the one who can take anything, but as someone carrying it quietly I stay ready, I stay scanning I stay kind, I stay planning I stay useful, I stay ahead I stay functioning, and I stay tired I'm always the strong one till I'm alone and it hits at once Till the room goes quiet around me and I realize how long I've been braced I know how to keep everyone safe, I just never learned to rest I know how to survive for everyone, I just don't know what living is yet So if I look calm, don't mistake it That was never peace, it was skill I became the strong one early And I've been paying for it still.