wordplay

Up all night and he slept all day

He’s a hard working man and he’d work to his grave

Lord knows they’ve got ’em digging it

For the future of his family he’d dig it gladly.

But his hands, they hurt so badly. And his knees won’t bend without a howl

his smile cures disease but he hides it in a scowl and let’s it breath into his headphones

pockets full of notes that keep him going

melodies are tuned to his frequency and find him no matter how low he goes.

Into the grave, down to the bones.

Skin ashen with the lack of sunlight, really lacking in the vitamin D intake.

He looks porcelain brown, he looks fake.

Money made, money maker how much money can he make?

If his worth was tied to it it wouldn’t float higher than a birthday balloon with half the helium escaped.

good thing it’s not. And he’ll remind you if he thinks you forgot. You don’t step to the man with his knuckles tied in knots, he knows heart when it’s there and he breathes heavy when it’s not.

He fills lungs of the brothers hung from stone arches and trees who never walked long enough to get the howl out their knees.

You won’t hear him sing but you’ll hear him breathe. You’ll hear him ring truth through the breeze and meet fines and fees with do goods and pleases.

He’ll tell you how you’re needed

on the surface of the soil and remind you that the surface bent low to hold you…

in the hole that you won’t do

anything but dig deeper now ’cause that sunlight is a flicker of a memory and it’s got you down to think that this is your reality.

He knows it aint true.

But he digs… next to you.