Spoken Word Performance

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

i’m

never afraid this city will forget to

breathe

the silence downtown rings out like

tornado

sirens but if you peer into our windows

the city keeps singing disaster

after disaster makes most broken

it made us artists our music

is an iron lung 200 years and the city

still feels young

because there will always be more

children

more lyrics more hope

that tomorrow brings something

luminescent the thing about people is

we all exist with as many faces as

friends

so when the storm comes we empty the

shelves

we shield the children we watch our

backs

because the storm will make you see

yourself

when the storm comes you cannot lock the

door

when the sickness comes you can’t forget

anymore disasters make us remember the

things we fight for

live for like when your sister says she

loves you you

fight to believe her you never realize

how fast disaster

can show you the worst side of humanity

or how it can show you beauty

somehow this quarantine has given me

sanctuary it is saving the only light

left the way the clap of our hands keep

time with our syncopated heartbeats

i call it daylight savings time

my city is its bluegrass rhythm

and i know that tomorrow will sing

because every choice we make in darker

times

splinters into different timelines

there’s always a timeline

where we come together as a community

and there’s always a timeline

where we fall apart there is never a

more resounding still

than the moment when reality splits

in the hush another world is born

in the moments when the wind is prepped

to decimate millions of years of

evolution in a single breath there may

not be

silence but there is stillness

i imagine a diametric mind

the shallow echo of a heartbeat and

eardrums

may remind us that we are alive

it may remind us how in a different

timeline any place could be in the eye

of the storm

we are a city that has taken hits and we

have the right to mourn

may it remind us that there is more

we may have run out of clarity

but nashville will never

run out of possibilities

you