Lower Empire

Bind the wrist, cut the tongue, call it liberation
Bind the wrist, cut the tongue, call it liberation
Invader, you dare make me a stranger
Invader, you brand me as a traitor

These borders were forged in loss
Painted with a martyr's forgotten blood
Legions of stone infecting the land
Legions we carved into the palm of God's hand
Stigmata cities stitched together with walls intent
On sanitizing the sedition of our dark traditions
We begin with the purest of intentions
Then fabricate the cruelest inventions

Interpret the subtext: "S-O-S"
Euthanized with euphemistic lies
Populace of blank binary minds
Appetite for endless apathy
Breathing in, in, insecurity

Until you see your reflection through the scope of a weapon
Nothing will ever change
A revolution stirs in the silence
The movement defies this negative space

I hear you through the noise
The truth that speaks in silence, scale the divides we devise
We locked out the world, but we're locked inside
I hear you through the noise
The hope sung from the margins, my heartbeat just a step behind
I didn't know your name, but I knew we were out of time

Nuclear families split apart like the atom
Demagogues proliferate the calloused grip of the state
The future asphyxiates under nativist suspicions
Insipid minds, domestic fission

Bind the wrist, cut the tongue, call it liberation
Bind the wrist, cut the tongue, call it liberation

Thirteen, cold as a stillborn, wounds still warm in his chest
Behold the crimson lens, peer through the gaps in the flesh
Bullets raining from Babylon: the price of wealth
How can you resist this cycle if you can't resist yourself?

What a world we knew
Before we fearfully withdrew
To our silent cells of solitude
But still I hear you, I hear you

I hear you through the noise
The truth that speaks in silence, scale the divides we devise
We locked out the world, but we're locked inside
I hear you through the noise
The hope sung from the margins, my heartbeat just a step behind
I didn't know your name, but I knew we were out of time