Speak God

[Intro — almost a growl] I left. That part’s done. This is the part where I make the turn hold. [Verse 1] I burned a year like it was spare change. Good room. Good work. I still walked out strange, hungry for a door that wasn’t mine to kick. I found one. I paid. It made me sick. So I came back down the same bad grade and I spoke a working that I will not trade. [Pre-chorus] No more renting my life to a restless itch. I turn. I take it. I make it stitch. [Chorus — long] I make the turn and I make it stay. I make the turn and I make it stay. I call my name till it answers like a dog that knows the porch and the length of the fog. I bind the runner in me to the floor I chose. He can knock. He does not get my clothes, my hours, my house, my clean right hand. I cast him down. I make him stand behind me instead of inside my chest. I take the wheel. I do the rest. Rise. Rise. Put the shoulder in. A man can sin and still refuse to spin the same black circle till it wears him thin. I speak good forward into this skin. I speak good order into this week. I speak a spine into a mouth gone weak from saying later like later was a god. It is not. I break that rod. Turn. Turn. Hold the turn. Hold the line in me— not a fence, a decision that I will not flee. I cast my future like a hammered nail. It stays. I stay. That is the tale. [Verse 2] They like a legend of a man gone wild. They do not have to wash what he defiled or look a child, a boss, a friend in the eye and say I ran. I will not mythologize the coward in me just because he had style. I put him in the dirt. I make him file behind the work. Behind the kept day. That is the only pardon I will pay. [Pre-chorus] No more renting my life to a restless itch. I turn. I take it. I make it stitch. [Chorus — long] I make the turn and I make it stay. I make the turn and I make it stay. I call my name till it answers like a dog that knows the porch and the length of the fog. I bind the runner in me to the floor I chose. He can knock. He does not get my clothes, my hours, my house, my clean right hand. I cast him down. I make him stand behind me instead of inside my chest. I take the wheel. I do the rest. Rise. Rise. Put the shoulder in. A man can sin and still refuse to spin the same black circle till it wears him thin. I speak good forward into this skin. I speak good order into this week. I speak a spine into a mouth gone weak from saying later like later was a god. It is not. I break that rod. Turn. Turn. Hold the turn. Hold the line in me— not a fence, a decision that I will not flee. I cast my future like a hammered nail. It stays. I stay. That is the tale. [Bridge] Don’t applaud the wreck. Anybody can wreck. Fuck the romance of the man who never comes home. Damn the crowd that cheers a ruin like a poem. This shit is the turn: ugly, slow, and right. Do it in daylight. Do it tonight. [Verse 3] Morning is a courtroom with a coffee cup. I pass if I get up, and I stay up. No halo. Just a list, a wrench, a back that does not bolt when the old itch tracks my name across the yard. I let it call. I do not follow. That is the whole law. [Final chorus] I make the turn and I make it stay. I make the turn and I make it stay. I call my name till it answers like a dog that knows the porch and the length of the fog. I bind the runner in me to the floor I chose. He can knock. He does not get my clothes, my hours, my house, my clean right hand. I cast him down. I make him stand behind me instead of inside my chest. I take the wheel. I do the rest. Rise. Rise. Put the shoulder in. A man can sin and still refuse to spin the same black circle till it wears him thin. I speak good forward into this skin. I speak good order into this week. I speak a spine into a mouth gone weak from saying later like later was a god. It is not. I break that rod. Turn. Turn. Hold the turn. Hold the line in me— not a fence, a decision that I will not flee. I cast my future like a hammered nail. It stays. I stay. End of tale. [Outro — spoken] That’s the working. Not pretty. It holds.