Black Line Atlas

[Verse 1]
The N2 highway bleeds ink under her thumb.
After the last train rattles the windowpane,
she unfolds the Shell map from nineteen-ninety-one.
The kitchen table is cold, smelling of evening rain.

[Chorus]
(Vocalist 2) Redraw the line, redraw the line.
From the Eastern Cape coast to the city mine.

[Verse 2]
Each suburb's a grid, a neat and guarded square.
Her breath fogs the gloss on the paper's cheap veneer.
'You can't go back,' the letter says, a black line where
a name should be. She traces the border of a forgotten year.

[Chorus]
(Vocalist 2) Redraw the line, redraw the line.
From the Eastern Cape coast to the city mine.

[Bridge]
(Vocalist 2) This is not a map to a place.
This is the shape of a face.

[Outro]
Ikhaya... redraw the line.
Ikhaya... the city mine.