Promise

Ye lowlives
Laughing too much
Never close your eyes
'til the sun’s coming up
Underslept, overdreamt
My whole life
Trying to speak
But silent
With so much beneath it
That thick wind under the surface
You don’t know me, or my purpose
Or my promise, I got promise
Your hands and feet
For all of their grief
Turned out to be
Only your elbows and knees
You go farther, and you’re just starting to see
And you see that red pen
Hover in judgement
And that census
Get those numbers away from us
'cause honest, we got promise
I’m waking up
Pull me from my sheets in the dark
As if in a dream, lifting off
Let me feel it shift in my blood
Let me feel like I’m rising up
Out of all the ashes and dust
Out of all the past — that’s done
I don’t need what’s long dead and gone, man, I got promise
I got promise
Yeah, we got promise