Dreams Don’t Ask For Permission

Cardboard crown

On a cracked front step

Little map drawn

On the back of my wrist

Said “run till the fear

Can’t keep up with your feet”

Mama packed stories

I packed teeth

They drew their borders

Right across my skin

Said

“be smaller”

I just breathed in

Dreams don’t ask permission

They kick down every door

I’m done with quiet prison

I was made for something more

You can chain my body

But my sky is never yours

Dreams don’t ask permission

I’m already past your walls

Found my people

In the outcast row

Rainbow jackets

In the very back rows

Trading scars like

Secret handshakes in the dark

Every “too much”

Turning into sparks

They wrote their rules

Right over our names

Tried to erase us

We stayed the same

[low vocal register] If I’m “too loud”

Then hear me now

If I’m “too strange”

I won’t trade it out

[full voice] Every “sit down”

Becomes our battle sound

We rise

We rise

We rise from underground [gang vocals: “we rise

We rise”]