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Children's Work

from A Badly Broken Code by Dessa

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about

My father was a paper plane
My mother was a windswept tree
My little brother’s nearly twice my age
He taught me how to meditate
I taught him how to read.
I grew up with a book in my bed
I got these dark circles
Before I turned ten.
Heard my mother with her friends
Worry it was something she did
To get such a serious kid.

(Chorus)
Now I’ve learned
How to paint my face
How to earn my keep
How to clean my kill
But some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back
And I can see us still.
You’ve learned how to hold your own
How to stack your stones
But the history’s thick
Children aren’t as simple
As we’d like to think.
Before you came along
I was a lone cub,
Fell in love with language
Tried to tell the grown ups
About the storm clouds,
The weather in my head
Hadn’t learned the word for
Melancholy yet.
Then you came in five years behind
We thought you couldn’t talk
Turns out you were just shy.
Mom said it was serious
Dad said you’d be fine
I thought you were the prophet of 1989.
You were so tender
We thought something was
Wrong with you
So patient
We thought that you were deaf
You were so solemn
So tiny but so ancient
Ma took you to see doctors
You scared her half to death
And I made you a library
Of tiny books
With spines two inches high
You didn’t say too much, but smiled
Taught me how to
Quiet down my mind.

Chorus

You slept in my bed
And if I kept quiet…
I could hear all the voices in your head.

When the wagon tipped
I prayed over your body
I asked God to take
the damage out on me
Ten years later
He finally got the memo
Sent it to accounting
And knocked out my front teeth.
But you came to
And took my hand
And held my eyes and
Me and you
Had a long walk home
So we decided not to cry.
Now we’ve got a grown up love
And I know that’s how it’s
Supposed to be, same old story
Mom gets Easters,
Lets Dad have Christmas Eves.
But I won’t pretend I don’t remember
How unusual we were
The little mystic and his handler
All some children do is work.
I’ve learned how to paint my face
How to earn my keep
How to clean my kill
But some nights I still can’t sleep
The past rolls back
And I can see us still.

credits

from A Badly Broken Code, track released January 19, 2010
Produced by MK Larada
Recorded by Joe Mabbott at the Hideaway

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Dessa Minneapolis

Dessa is a writer and touring musician based in Manhattan and Minneapolis. Quick wit, sharp pen, soft heart.

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