Aline & Wes
A New Dispensation

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Verse

Didn’t choose where I was born

Didn’t choose where I was raised

Still I am who I am

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Born with a plastic spoon

Eating with teeth of gold

Still the sun follows my every move

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Chorus

I’m not taking a side

I’m not in this divide

Let’s try a new dispensation

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Verse 2

I’m here without being here

I’m screaming to collide

From cliffs guardians abide

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I’m seeking ecstasy

That only peace

has the fruit to bare

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Chorus

I’m not taking a side

I’m not in this divide

Let’s try a new dispensation

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Throwing caution to the wind

It’s better than the same thing again

Let’s try a new dispensation

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Bridge

No night

So long

Without a dawn

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No night

So long

Without a dawn

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Outro

Let’s Try a New Dispensation

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Amy Laybourn
Sometimes Words Are Impossible

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Show me all your scars

They don’t look anything like mine

Trace these lines, trace these tracks in time

Sometimes words are impossible to find

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I know I’m not, telling this correct

I can never tell it right or tell it well

Words have never been and words will never be

I could never make you understand this hell

But I love you still

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This is how, this is why

I disappeared inside my mind

I thought forgetting, never looking back

Would erase this pain inside

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I know I’m not, telling this correct

I can never tell it right or tell it well

Words have never been and words will never be

I could never make you understand this hell

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Show me how to find

Another way through time

Show me how to iron out

All these wrinkles on my mind

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Stuffed it deep

Deep deep down inside

Sometimes words are impossible to find No matter how

How how you try

Sometimes words are impossible to find

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I know I’m not, telling this correct

I can never tell it right or tell it well

Words have never been and words will never be

I could never make you understand this hell

But I love you still

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Sometimes words are impossible to find

Sometimes words are impossible to find

Sometimes words are impossible to find

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Salome MC
Relinquished

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Verse 1:

Sleepless and cold the heat-tech fleece

Survivor’s guilt, mixed with touching knees

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Protests and deaths, every thumb-tap

Begging to make up for my absence

myopic eyes dry, neck pillow wet,

heartache in bed quantified in shares

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Circadian rhythm off-beat on blues

Scrolling my past, hoping maybe “Ye rooz…” (One day…)

Knowing I’ll never walk Enghelab again

in my Iran-made shoes

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Chorus:

Will defenders down their weapons and bow this time around?

Will they burn their uniforms and join the crowds this time around?

Will the shrine of rulers reduce to rubble with no rematch

Trying to wrap my mind around a broken olive branch

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Verse 2

Forlorn, awareness rises ‘n falls with tides

Banshees mum when so abstract a demise

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Activists, actors, politicians

Considering maths of revolution

The power of words relinquished in

red heart-fishing vacant renditions

Maybe of the raw change we asked for

We deserve this pore-free version

Photo-ops oppression-era fashion

Fundraisers in poor-proof mansions

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Spoken Word:

Editorial emissions and insertions

countered with trending hashtags

PR-approved note app incursions,

participation trophies in swag bags

Revolutions

will not be televised

but live-streamed on-demand

interrupted periodically by DIY-aesthetic corporate ads

And I, claiming to be an ally, still will pick a team based on my implicit biases that I’m conditioned to deny

My default algorithm will favor whitewashed lies

Tap tap tap until I comfortably settle on whatever echo chamber makes me feel safe in my tribe

Conscious clear, I’ve done my part

Except, dead children do not subtract from profit margins even in genocide

Our reps, their donors, colonizers and bone saw dictators in the same bed

Embedded to every bomb in the middle east is a copper cent

Donated by yours truly, taxed duly on my meager income more than literal billionaires

Wake up

Your neighbor is not the real enemy

Follow the fucking money

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Sorry, lost the plot in there a little bit

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Chorus:

Will defenders down their weapons and bow this time around?

Will they burn their uniforms and join the crowds this time around?

Will the shrine of rulers reduced  to rubble with no rematch?

Trying to wrap my mind around a broken olive branch

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Will defenders down their weapons and bow this time around?

Will they burn their uniforms and join the crowds?

Will the shrine of rulers turn into ashes?

Trying to wrap my mind around so many things…