Volunteer Bloom

[Verse 1]
(A cappella)
You dropped the flyer on the dash of the old Sentra,
Said, “That councilman’s smile feels like kudzu on the oak.”
(Music enters)
The night air’s thick with pluff mud and regret,
Just another Tuesday trying to move a stone with our breath.
Your knuckles are white on the gear shift.

[Chorus]
Are we just volunteer bloom, baby?
Growing in a concrete crack.
They’ll pave us over by next summer,
And we’ll just keep on coming back.

[Verse 2]
I trace the salt-stain on the passenger window.
“They don’t own the tide,” I whisper, “or the way the sawgrass grows.”
You just shake your head, turn the radio down low.
Remember the water line the last storm left on the porch screen door?
Some things you can’t pretend you don’t know.

[Chorus]
Are we just volunteer bloom, baby?
Growing in a concrete crack.
They’ll pave us over by next summer,
And we’ll just keep on coming back.

[Bridge]
And I want to be angry, I want to feel the heat,
But all I feel is your thumb drawing circles on my knee.
This tired hope, a fragile petiole in the street.

[Outro]
Yeah, we’ll just keep on coming back.
Won't we?