The Tribes Between Us

a girl and a voice

heating their hearts in a radiant new

york restaurant

he wants to impress her picks the price

he’s bottled but she kind of prefers

they were down in mcdonald’s she tries

to pretend that she knows how to slip

which spoon to use her nap can silk knit

her eyes are starved because the

winter’s nice

her hair thick and dark is her blood and

her curves are as dull good as the

clementis

his eyes are as blue as the summer sky

skin of spheres of dawn’s new light

his hair kissed golden by the sunset his

bones as broad as a sturdy mind

a waiter brings down the drinks they

asked the boy is upset

for it’s not the right glass he thinks

he ordered straight

no stutter with a quiet tone he asked

a girl thinks the waiter is not from

this land she thinks of her parents the

strife they withstand

through learning the language and

learning the strengths the hard jobs

struggles to make ends meet and though

she knows that the boy doesn’t want to

be found you’re sad he can’t seem to

understand

that the waiter is struggling to grasp

his words while he thinks he’s asking

for what he justly deserves

the girl wants to tell him he’s being

warned instead

of just as as quiet

go by like out of the story they talk

about life and

all their worries the girl slowly sips

on her ruby red wine and the boy slurps

his beer with no track of time

eventually tom goes to religion and the

girl starts to fight and she lists

all her reasons waving her arms and

starting to shout

the boy imploring her not to run out

the girl still offended she burst at the

scene from the dimly lit restaurant

causing a scene

the boy doesn’t know why she’d so

quickly surrender to all that is painful

and all that is tender

so much that it spoils the time that

they’ve spent this she says goodbye

he fears

[Music]

as they come apart she has home in a

cloud she tiptoes but her heels are

often too loud

into the kitchen holding her breath in

fear hoping and praying that her father

won’t hear

she trips over a jar filled with pickled

tomatoes knocking mother teresa

off the wall with her elbow her father

confused by american dating

he’s been worried all night for his

daughter waiting

he doesn’t sculpt him it’s not his

intent he just sits still in a quiet

disappointment which is so much harder

for the conscience to hold and it stabs

her soul and swallows her whole

he’s a hard-working smart good honest

man

he’s built so much with his own two bare

hands he values his family

far above money and honor everything for

love for his wife for his daughters

as her mom heads to work in the late

midnight hours she tells her to guard

herself to say states in her tower

the world’s not to be trusted it will

steal every youth that will use up her

beauty and twist up the truth and her

sister she holds her and listens and

wipes her tears

plagued by shadows of adolescent fears

her mother

herself beautiful looks with it lived an

adventure-filled youth with so much

excitement

a heart full of gold to poetic recanter

her pride and passion in the hands of

her daughter

and often the vigor and joy in these two

it bursts through the seams and you see

it shine through but sometimes their

sorrow and

faces they wear a look that slowly snuck

on them somewhere

through the dishes and floors that they

scrubbed through dom

loved ones left behind buried now gone

with nightmares of past pain that they

buried

in an ancient abandoned old cemetery

their feet never firmly neither here nor

there

they’re vaguely hearts flowing

their home is fenced by others like

theirs

with half-fixed cars and twinkle lights

in the stairs

smelling of chamomile and pure olive oil

the head of the lamb

that burns on the ball though they do

not all share the same foreign name

they feel like a family and they long

for the same they supported each other

when they our own country couldn’t they

open their homes

when all others wouldn’t the people of

this town they’re sometimes too loud

too tears of meddlesome sometimes too

proud they stir up and gossip they cry

they stare

the brands of the cars and the clothes

that they wear

their wistful whims get the best of

their wits as they speak in exotic

tongues in the streets but as the week

comes to a close to an end they come

together and they

join hand in hand in a chain of music a

feeling of color and they feed and they

kiss and they love one another and their

emotional songs and smells have no

end and they bring a taste of their home

to this new promised land their

motherland

a rock-filled rough rugged warrior she

suffered through hundreds of wars in a

horror

her shape has changed 200 times but her

character it never broke and resigned

never losing her dignity though she did

lament through the rivers of

the tears as fickle as the hopes of the

mobs

a character built through bunkers and

bombs

grown by warriors like alexander the

great adored by his kingdom and by

his fate

by vincent shedding out blood from his

ear da vinci who painted with only his

tears

cleopatra seducing foreign lands through

their hearts

and even before that they prayed to

their gods their gods

of so jealous demanding composers

lustful and prideful mocking their poets

how they liked to indulge and how they

left to surrender

and all that was striking and all that

was tender

two thousand miles further up to the

north another fatherland is also

insightful

born of glaciers erected to stone the

iron

bronze infused in their bones with

soldiers and stallions with village of

plunder

cannon powder that echoed in thunder

they put all their trust and statues and

royals and sir isaac newton

and science and lawyers and darwin’s

evolution and continuous kind

and john locke studied every single

night they knew not to sway

the winds of the seasons they found

their morals

grounded in reason one day not too long

ago a group of these men

they bound on a ship found a new

fatherland

their strength and their stubbornness

and disciplined hands

found a new world found freedom again

and sometimes they killed

innocent natives cotton fields flooded

with the tears they put slaves in

but time did what she does as history

whispers in their reasoning their

laws they soon became crisper

their justice adapted and their morals

evolved

and they became more grounded in the

problems they solved to change up the

laws to seek independence

they fought for a system in the laws to

defend them

protesting injustice they fought for

their rights

they shaped up new character with the

force of their fight

and in a neighborhood filled with these

strong-minded staples there lives a

family full of these people

the father a good man is quiet and wise

he wears a briefcase in a suit and a tie

he waits before sunrise to be home

before dinner

he teaches his children to be strong to

be winners

he never skips a single one of their

games

he teaches the manners at their bones

men the same

to stand up to fight whenever they fall

to dry up their tears to keep playing

ball he teaches his children to keep

working wisely

to reach for the big leak to aim for the

ivs and his wife

as a sturdy and effective woman she’s

left her job

to raise her children she uses no makeup

she prefers simple dress and she tries

not to dwell

on the careers that she’s missed the

simplicity

upholds the roots of their family she

does not spoil them although they have

money

one of her sons starts to grow leaves

the house

chooses a job and he looks for her

spouse

his eyes are as blue as the summer sky

his skin is fair so

dawn’s new light his hair is kissed

golden by the sunset and his bones broad

as a sturdy mind and one day while

sitting in a restaurant

it all becomes clear and he knows what

he wants

she waves her arms wildly

and walks away with the whirl the boy

falls madly in love with the girl

her eyes are as dark as the winter’s

night skin olive

sun gets shower her hair thick and dark

is our blood

and our curves delicate as a clementis

flower and though they are different

in every sense every faction when bare

bodies entangle

there’s no reason just passion they’re

simply extensions of one another

they’re one with love and loves their

higher power and he sees a gazelle

exquisite and tender and she sees a

stallion that will never surrender and

their love is what grants them the

language and patience

to bear open their hearts to let go of

vengeance

for love it is stronger than socrates

passions from kant’s moral reasons

and cleo’s high fashions they learn how

to reason they learn

how to feel she soothes his fury and he

catches her tears

and one day they bring forth a new child

a new life

and the boy and the girl they become man

and wife

and they dance hand in hand in the

fields

of his mothers they play ball with him

in the fields of his fathers

he studies the bible shakes spirit hops

he knows of the passion of the love of

the gods

he knows of the justice of the law’s

predecessors he hears of the sacrifices

of

all his ancestors he dreams of the big

leagues and he aims for the ivies and

his heart

it is good and he makes choices wisely

his skin olive with the sun kissed him

his hair kissed by morning light

his bones broad as a sturdy mind and his

eyes are as dark as the winter’s night

and sometimes he’s stubborn and swallows

his tears

still learning to feel it seems we’ve

got crimes that we’re all guilty of

but the beatles were right all you need

is love

hi i am olivia and the story that i just

shared is that of the coming together of

two very different cultures and worlds

between my husband and i even though we

are two separate people that come from

different cultures

gender economic status religion etc etc

you name it

the end of the day we’re just human

beings and we have the same needs

a difference in opinion if it’s looked

at superficially

can tear a relationship apart can tear a

whole country apart

and dismantle it can make us villainize

each other and just focus on the fact

that

at our core we all just care about the

same things

we just go about it in different ways as

human beings we are inherently tribal

we have this need to belong to a group

and we do it so passionately

but regardless of which tribe race

gender religion or

political ideology we belong to the

things that we disagree about

they’re often only the tip of the

iceberg usually they stem from the same

fears and securities and flaws he

desires to protect our most

important dreams and values we’re all

made up of the same imperfect human

material

we’re all capable of horrible crimes and

beautiful miracles

we all want to know that our children

our parents

the people that we love they’ll be okay

and taken care of

we all just want to feel heard and

understood and we want to feel like we

belong to a family in a community in a

world that respects us and hears our

needs

so important that we as a country take a

moment to remember these things and to

come together

especially considering how divided we’ve

all become

we’ve worked too hard we’ve come too far

science economics technology our

medicine our understanding of psychology

of humanity it’s developed

way too much for us to still be so

focused on how we differ and how we

disagree with each other

so the next time that you come across

someone with a vastly different opinion

from you just take a moment to hear

not just what they’re saying with their

mouth but think about what they

feel and why what that value is that is

actually important to them deep in their

hearts

underneath the superficial words and the

anger that come up out here

try to see maybe you felt that same way

before too

maybe even share that same value

so about 10 years ago i’d come to new

york city

and i became inspired to write music as

i saw so many people here and i was

constantly on the lookout for a place to

write my songs

preferably somewhere with a piano as i

wrote my songs to me it didn’t really

matter whether i snuck myself

into a church or a synagogue a temple or

a mosque

the way it felt as i sang especially

with the song that i’m about to show you

it was always as if the music would just

rise up and echo above me it would call

out my

dreams and my vulnerabilities to the

same entity the same higher power bigger

than me

and it made me feel connected to

humanity to something bigger than myself

it was always the same spiritual

experience regardless of where i was

so i ask that as you listen to my

imperfect song

and you see my drawings think of your

own prayers and hopes and dreams

and let them rise up together along with

my song to the same sky above us

as we share in the same imperfect human

experience

[Music]

together

he’s so close and still so far from

where he thought he’d be

from all the time that he has lost

burning paycheck streams throwing hope

away like

dust with all his prayers

in the unknown

[Music]

knowing nothing more

[Music]

people

tend to forget

[Music]

but we haven’t

given up just yet

when his time has come and gone his song

will play into the wind

soothing prisoners of all their jokes

and

all their dreams with all their naked

hands

beating drums and souls to black and

blue

trying to find themselves trying to find

the truth

promising

[Music]

knowing nothing more

[Music]

people

[Music]

and the fires

[Music]

but we haven’t

given up just

[Music]

yes

all right