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... 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