They tell you about the revolutions that triumphed,
The revolutions that crawled out of their cages,
Tore apart their chains and won their wars.
The revolutions that tell you
This is right, that is wrong as if you can
Tell morality from directions on a map, oh those black-white revolutions.
As if the only ending that will ever exist is a happy one
As if dictators don’t hide behind open faces,
And your neighbors are always kind.
Hear the cheering, the pounding of warm hearts
While blood is spent –
They don’t tell you about the ones that failed:
History calls them rebels, traitors, miscreants,
While victors are hailed as revolutionaries
After the fact.
The damned damn well held their heads high,
The ones where people spend their nights awake,
Asking the stars
Where are we going?
But what can we do but fight, when the ground is shaking under our feet
To take a stand and say: Our voices will be heard,
Even when they turn away.
We may falter, may stumble, but some things are more important
We tried, we will continue trying,
And in that, we hope.