**The Reaping** [Intro] Crown locked on The graveyard exhales He walks toward the town With a harvest of nails [Verse 1] No speech on the hill No warning, no drum Just a king off the leash And the dark that he brung Windows go white Then they go to black He takes what they took And he don’t bring it back Porch lights like targets Saints in their sheets He reaps through the normal Like wheat at his feet [Pre-Chorus] She told him don’t With a stitched little mouth He heard it He loved her He still went south Love turned to sickle Grief turned to law A brutal little gospel With blood in its jaw [Chorus] This is the reaping This is the tear This is a king With no mercy to spare They pulled her to pieces He pays it in kind Brutal by promise Brutal by design She watches from the treeline Newly sewn, already thin By the end of his justice She’s broken again [Verse 2] He don’t do it pretty He don’t do it clean He makes the whole street Wear her old scream Doors off the hinges Names off the mail A scarecrow’s ripped jacket Pinned up like a sail The living learn running The living learn kneel He wanted ’em ruined He wanted ’em real Not a cartoon haunting Not a holiday fright A man keepin’ score In the meat of the night [Pre-Chorus] Monsters at his shoulder Waitin’ on the nod He don’t even need ’em He’s enough of a god Every moral they shouted While they tore out her seams He stuffs back down their throats With the straw and the screams [Chorus] This is the reaping This is the tear This is a king With no mercy to spare They pulled her to pieces He pays it in kind Brutal by promise Brutal by design She watches from the treeline Newly sewn, already thin By the end of his justice She’s broken again [Bridge] She follows the smoke Button eyes wide This ain’t the man Who sat with her nights This is the crown With the softness burned out This is retribution Wearin’ his mouth She tries to hold him Wheat fingers slip He’s too far into tearing To feel the grip “Come home,” she begs He don’t turn around He’s makin’ a church Out of levelin’ the town [Verse 3] Dawn tries to happen It can’t get through The street’s a confession The king’s still not through She stands in the wreck Of a peace they once chased Sees her own ripped pieces In the living men’s faces That’s when it takes her Not a hand, not a blade The sight of her lover As the thing that they made Knees in the ash Thread poppin’ loose A scarecrow gone slack With no fight left to use [Chorus] This is the reaping This is the tear This is a king With no mercy to spare They pulled her to pieces He paid it in kind She needed a healer He gave her a crime She watches from the ashes Newly sewn, split again By the end of his justice She’s broken Amen [Outro] He comes back bloody Lookin’ for her hands Finds a pile of harvest Where a woman should stand “I did it for you” That’s the last thing he said She don’t answer king She don’t lift her head Retribution got finished The town learned to fear And the scarecrow he saved Came apart Right here
