Dust

What is home when it turns on you?

Yo, my house is on fire
Homelands on fire
Neighborhoods on fire
The whole world's on fire
Damn

I was outcasted at an early age
A child of conflict in so many ways
At night, thieves of life roam streets til the light
Let off a violent lullaby, what's normal is horrifying
I wish I had an alibi, but I was in the midst
Of a whole war zone called growth in the 6
Where you don't ever feel like your city wants you to live
Children, carry guilt for surviving this prison
Made of city blocks where they predicted we'd be victims
It took vision, plus a mother's intuition
One-way travel just to see something different
I left like she left, on the eve when a war crept
Before the time when most of our folks fled
There was probably less than thirty Habesha then
It's multiplied now by tens of thousands
How cycles repeat when we reach the Southend
We were forced here, now we can't afford the housing
So my folks keep scattering around the map
"Back home" means the opposite of where you at
The ones you left tell you quietly, don't come back

Rumors of war in the motherland
I'm struggling in this other land
My brother's got a gun in hand
But I don't want to run again, no
Rumors of war in the motherland
And we can't get no money in
And you see what the hunger did
We do what we can for the fam

I'm a Southend-made, Beacon Hill-raised
Child of the District, these neighborhoods claim
Bones of my loved ones who've passed away
Some were shot down even during a plague
A few decades gone, and the song don't change
We couldn't stop it then so we carry the shame
These groups in more ways than not are same
Keep each other just close enough to aim
Reflections blood-stained, communities share pain
Nobody wins when a life's taken away
So young, mothers bury their sons and wonder
Why did we leave where we're from to come under
A new kind of fire where the country doesn't love us
Police don't protect us, they lock our babies in chains
We love 'em with all we got, pray they make it home safe
Never once feeling like a citizen of these states

Rumors of war in the motherland
I'm struggling in this other land
My brother's got a gun in hand
But I don't want to run again, no
Rumors of war in the motherland
And we can't get no money in
And you see what the hunger did
We do what we can for the fam

What is home when it turns on you?
Is it still home? Was it ever home?
You know now that home is
Where the hate is, where the heart
Knows no peace and so it goes
Falling to pieces
Try to keep it together as you run
For cover, as you rush to gather
Essentials for your escape. Go
And keep going. And dare
To look back at the devastation
Be still and remember that dust
Is the source of life