Three Stripes

This a sentence from birth Chains we lay in all day Promises held in hands that moved astray I loved you anyway Took your blue, your grey Your three stripes, I gave you my life Since my first breath Since before the rising Since my great granny's death And my grandfather spiraling Had a love for our land, this Emerald Isle From the cliffs to the streets history's bled in these miles Sound to the bus man Sorry in rush a man But three quid's too much now Two-seventy's not enough No worries it's fine We'll get there on time In my suit and my tie, don't know whether to laugh or to cry Sixteen bus, that's the 8 o'clock rush Are we working too much? Am I feeding a system? Setting fire to flames just by going on living? Listen, must be missing something Tryna answer the question Is it lack of direction? Is it my own reflection? Is it yours? Is it his? Is it hers? Is it ours? Is it spending our wages getting faded cause the truth's too hard? While the homeless stay homeless And we blame the homeowners Not the ones who control us They're happy we're hopeless Sun's sharp, barely coping tryna give us the night But nowadays it seems we're too accustomed inside So let's keep on texting tryna deal with the lonely Sending love through a screen to a girl that don't know me Tryna make a whole me, but there's rips in these sweaters These hand me down hoodies are only worth what we let 'em You left us buried in dirt In hopes we'd wither and fade Raised cement to the sky And drenched our city in shade Bloodied pavements for pay Still took your blue with your grey Your three stripes, I gave you my life Split the timbers, arches Break the parliament's doors Get a voice in the Dáil And tell the fuckers they're spoilt Rid the stains from the soil They can't drown out our noise Your three stripes, your three stripes So let's just ignore all those real issues Those real deep feelings Those real "I miss yous" Those real wrongdoings and feeling real misused Seems we'd rather live without seeing any of that through And that's the real issue Connection