IV. Burial

Propose a vow
Swear an oath
As poisoned wine floods our veins

Let each swallow
Warm this season
That kills us the most

But we hold on
To that ledge
Though we're losing our grip
On this icicle life

Sink in your nails
And please spit out those pills
Keep it kicking
Though you feel so broken
We can still mend these ties

Just hold strong
On through these dying days
Know that we will find land
And cough up the blood
From our lungs
On the shore

Cough up the blood
Cough up the blood
Spit out the blood
Spit out the blood
And breathe

Collect the windfall
As the crops sway;
Perform their burial
Before the sun fades

Tear open the flesh
Rip up the seams
Retrieve the seeds
To save, to sow
At dawn in spring

Pull out thick clumps of old hair
Grow anew
Love again

Toward the unknown
Our footfall treads blindly
Feeling through the dark
For the moss side of a guiding tree
Whose bright leaves call to mind
The trail of tears
A pulse taken for each section
Of this concrete

Slaughtered millions
Pinned to graves
Beneath the weight
Of this great fucked machine

The blood red moon
Like a reaper's scythe
Cuts free this tired spirit
Into the swirling, frozen night

Starving we swallow star-lit skies
As the medicine of purging rites
To cough up all our demons
To smother
Each memory held hostage in sorrow's choir

Our lifelines grow
Like grass hair from the graves
Our day's rivers run through these bodies
Unwinding each woven day