Despite Concrete

Look where you're planted. Did they know you'd be essential?
Look where you rise up even with the odds against you
A force in the morning bringing up the people with you
With the work that you put in caring for and bearing of fruits

They will grow, despite concrete
They will grow, despite concrete

You push through the pavement, singing songs and talking to screens
You rise through the ceiling like hot air if the basement had heat
You lift from the mattress: singular and worn out and shared
You still put a pin up in a cork board of goals and your hair

You will grow, despite concrete
You will grow, despite concrete

You've been beaten backwards by lovers and teachers and luck
Had branches clipped off, felt so insurmountably stuck
Chronic conditions: biological or product of fate
It makes you feel so small when you're growing whole years in a day

Still you grow, despite concrete
Still you grow, despite concrete

When babies are blossomed they sag you far down with their weight
And fathers are far off or tired from their work the next day
But you don't get time off when standing up is work in itself
You've never been helpless, you just weren't given the help

But you grow, despite concrete
But you grow, despite concrete

I see in the future when I'm standing up under your shade
The wind that can knock me down only ever gets you to sway
I say what you taught me
When you thought of and bought me the book about a house on a street

I say it for who grew despite concrete
Despite concrete

I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete
I will grow, despite concrete