STILL MOVING

I kept thinking movement was the distance between me and everything I couldn’t face Turns out I brought it all with me Dawn came thin through an industrial sky One road going forward, seven worlds behind Chapel dust on the shoulder of a coat worn black Old motel key and a folded train map Contestant number crushed in the side of my bag Water-ring stain where the truth finally sat Malik in the radio, low through the snow Every voice that said leave every voice that said go I learned rooms from the back learned roads from the rain Learned a prize with your name still belongs to the game Learned command isn’t power when the powerless freeze It’s the hand on the door saying Move when I leave I was useful till useful became all I could be Kept a hundred people breathing wouldn’t breathe for me Now the skyline is quiet no signal to obey No one waiting for orders Still I walk anyway No crown No finish line No clean road No perfect sign I carry every version I refused to leave behind Still moving even when the road runs out Still moving even with the lights shut down No crown No finish line No perfect way through I carried every version of me And I’m still moving Still moving Still moving Nothing behind me is wasted Still moving I came from the cable case, back-row shadow Cold chapel stone and the low amp rattle Then the highway sold me freedom in a motel light So I chased every exit through the middle of the night Met saints by the pumps, met lies by the mile Met men selling maps with a dead-man smile Hit the prize-floor bright with the contract clean Till I held every clause to the camera screen Then Tomorrowline shook when the station went blind Had a hundred scared faces and a half-dead line No captain, no signal, no official reply So I cut through the lock and told everybody ride Then Glass Water showed me the tremor in hand All the grief I converted into something I could plan Then the relay woke up with the names they erased So I sent every voice through the wire into space Now the tower is dead but the signal stays living Every road took something, every road kept giving Every mask, every job, every wound, every city Every time I stayed hard when the truth wasn’t pretty I don’t call that healing I don’t call it fate I call it showing up when the next step waits I don’t need the machine I don’t need the applause I don’t need to be pure to be sure of the cause I was never the saviour never saint, never king Just the man who kept walking when they shut down everything Still moving even when the road runs out Still moving even with the lights shut down No crown No finish line No perfect way through I carried every version of me And I’m still moving I spent my whole life trying to arrive somewhere A room where nothing followed A city that didn’t know me A future without the weight There was nowhere to arrive There was only the next honest step So take it I walk with the chapel but I’m not in the back Walk with the highway but I don’t need the map Walk with the number but I’m nobody’s prize Walk with the train light still burned in my eyes Walk with the water and the name in the glass Walk with the signal that survived its collapse Every ghost gets a seat every failure gets room Every person I was gets to walk into noon No dramatic escape no parade at the end No enemy waiting no throne to defend Just a road turning pale as the night loses hold And the weight on my shoulders finally carried, not controlled I started in the back I crossed every line I don’t need the front now The road is mine