Loose Cigarettes

Black lung

Black life

The black hole stuck inside my

half-black, heavy heart

As if these stupid words might play some part in status quos

In sleeper holds, in middle passage or tobacco roads.

Just like four-hundred years of loaded guns

Might somehow be undone by singing songs

Like they were bricks when we're

We're trading lives for loose cigarettes

And blackened eyes and blackened lungs

And free TVs and capsicum clouds

And if there is a god well she don't care at all if we

We sing the songs we throw the bricks

We're trying to breathe but we're choking on words like pig

And I'm just trying

I'm trying to breathe again

It changes nothing but

I guess I need to pretend

And I'm just trying

I'm trying to breathe again

It changes nothing but sometimes it helps to pretend