[Verse 1] There is a fear that learns your schedule, That wakes before the light; It waits beside the morning headlines, Then follows you to bed at night. You learn to read the room for danger, To hear a threat beneath a joke; To teach your children they are worthy While the world debates the words you spoke. We watched compassion called a weakness, Watched suffering become a game; Watched people turn their neighbors’ anguish Into a slogan and a name. And when we raised our voices, shaking, They said our anger was too loud, As though the smoke was our invention, As though the fire made them proud. The worst was not the fear of losing. It was the question underneath: What if they hear us asking mercy And still refuse to let us breathe? What if the silence isn’t distance? What if they understand our prayer? What if the people holding power Know we’re hurting—and don’t care? [Verse 2] So yes, we carried anger homeward, Into the kitchen, into bed; It lived in every reassurance We gave our children while we dread The morning’s newest cruel decision, The next life treated like a cost, The next demand to show compassion For those who never counted what we lost. We marched until our feet were aching, We called until our voices broke; We tried to turn our grief to language While the people listening called it smoke. They told us, “Wait. Be calm. Be patient.” But patience cannot stop a fall; You cannot ask a drowning stranger To make a polite case for it all. And hope became a frightening wager: One more piece of heart to spend, One more morning daring to believe The cruelty might someday end. Still, somewhere underneath the fury, A stubborn pulse refused to cease: We weren’t asking for perfection. We were asking for some peace. [Verse 3] Then October opened early voting, And people gathered in the dawn; They brought the weight of ordinary living And stood there when they could have gone. With aching knees and workday worries, With children restless at their side, They carried private, wordless stories And all the hope they’d learned to hide. One person waited. Then another. A line became a living thread; Each ballot held a different reason, Each choice a thing that hadn’t been said. A mother thinking of her daughter, A stranger mourning someone gone; A worker trading hours of wages For the chance to carry something on. Don’t call them merely turnout numbers. Each was a life beyond the chart; A hand that shook, a back that ached, A country carried in a heart. And every voice that once felt lonely Found an answer in the crowd: We didn’t need to know each other To say together, clear and loud— We are still here. We still remember. We have not laid our loved ones down. We came because the future matters, Even when hope has let us down. [Verse 4] November third. The map kept changing. The red spread wide across the screen; I felt that old familiar tightening, That dread of what the night might mean. I couldn’t trust the smallest promise, Couldn’t unclench enough to cheer; When hope has broken in your hands, You learn to hold it close to fear. Then metro Atlanta’s votes came forward: Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton in the count, Cobb and Gwinnett, lives behind the totals, Every voice an immeasurable amount. Not colors. Not a clever headline. Not some neat ending to a fight. But people who had stood in daylight So we could breathe a bit that night. And when the possibility grew real, I didn’t know what joy should sound like. I thought of everyone still hurting, Of every loss we couldn’t make right. Relief arrived beside the grieving; It didn’t ask the grief to leave. It only sat beside me quietly And said, “For once, you may believe.” [Final Verse] Last night I told the man I love, “I think we’ve worked so hard. We’ve manifested something out of Every frightened, fractured heart. We cried out into all that darkness, And somewhere, someone heard the sound; They cried out too, and others answered, Till none of us was crying out alone.” I think of all those separate houses, The kitchen lights that burned till two; The people asking if their voices Could reach somebody hurting too. I think of all the tears we swallowed, Of every hand that chose to stay; Of people who were scared and weary And still got up to vote that day. Tomorrow isn’t suddenly gentle. A ballot cannot raise the dead; It cannot give the years back to us Or take away the words they said. But rest is not the same as silence. And joy is not forgetting pain. We can be grateful for this moment And rise to do the work again. So let me cry without the terror. Let me hold the ones I keep. Let the quiet mean a kindness, Not another night without sleep. We worked so hard. We cried together. Our voices crossed the dark and deep. And for the first time in a long, long time— We can sleep peacefully tonight.
