To Suffer

[Intro]
King Lear late at night on the cliffs
Asks the blind Earl of Gloucester
"How do you see the world?"

The blind man Gloucester replies
"I see it feelingly...

And shouldn't we all?"

Animals must be off the menu
Because tonight they are screaming in terror
In the slaughterhouses, in crates, and in cages
Vile, ignoble gulags of despair

You see
I heard the screams of my dying father
As his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him

And I realized I had heard those scrеams before
In the slaughtеrhouse, their eyes stabbed out and their tendons slashed
On the cattle ships to the middle east

And the dying mother whale as a harpoon explodes in her brain
As she calls out to her calf

Their cries
Were the cries of my father

And I discovered that when we suffer, we suffer as equals

And in their capacity to suffer, a dog, is a pig, is a bear, is a boy

[Verse 1]
Suffer
As a meal, as commodity…

Suffer
Regardless of species…

Suffer
Due to a refusal to see…

Suffer
That no being is deserving of this suffering