The Toil of the Royals

I used to think it would be cool to have my name written on a star
but they get trampled on a lot more
than I thought more
I think about it though
I can relate
to footprints on my face
these life stories sampled from plots formed
at angles we didn’t even know were possible
we lean into these summer evenings
in white t-shirts and blue dreams
silhouettes all tangled up in blue beams
and tonight
smells like popcorn
but all these superheroes can only save us for a couple hours
before exit signs expertly escort us down hallways

we spill out all over the concrete
only there are no ushers to clean us up before the next showing
bemoaning the body blows
of reality juxtaposing its fists into the pits of our stomachs
you know it as well
as you know the smell
before it rains
and it’s ash raining down
volcanoes of crushed hope, flurries of hashtags
and it’s like we’re just the butt of jokes in dirty ash tray towns
there’s no uber to lyft us to the promised land
there’s no app for
these mostly meaningless moments that don’t make it to instagram
Lorde said “we’ll never be royals…”
inevitably we toil in the fields
settling for soil
I guess because it just feels
more familiar to our heels
thrashing in these tabernacles of clay
decking the halls with wrecking balls
antagonists on the ragged papyrus of our own screenplays
we scroll on
no wonder we yearn for the reinforcing ropes of intertwined fingers
we’re just trying to hold on
we’re just trying to hold on

shout out to the survivors
living for something can be a lot harder than dying for it
we’re just out here trying for it
sometimes our status here would have us fear
but there’s something super magical about the supernatural strength
we receive in our weakness
the Lord said we’d be royals
do we believe it?
if this is what carbon does at room temperature
imagine what it does in the flames of sanctification
like if dust could become us
us couldn’t become indestructible?
we look up beyond the stratosphere
and marvel at heavenly bodies
and forget the majestic heritage that we inherited
well, here’s a prayer for the heritage
cuz we got a flair for the heritage
if we could just dare to wear the heritage
I mean the crown of creation
the triumph of transformation
the eternal endurance of exaltation
these are the merits of illumination
so let the light come
there’s a reason our day dreams are so much sweeter than our night ones

life is not a highway
it’s a runway
we are not confined to this asphalt
we are not defined by past faults
but future victories
with these wings the sky is not even the limit
because the real superhero saved us for a couple forevers
and he didn’t suffer in the garden so that we’d have to stay in it
that’s a sovereignty worth honoring
and it’s why
every single book of life is worth authoring
this is our world
let’s play in it, embody the experience
until the day they make statues of us
shaped out of godly experience
befitting to who we are
there’s no need to audition
to be figures on some worldly boulevard
our names are already written
in the stars