We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Back to the Beginning feat. Tanaya Winder

from The Bridge by Frank Waln

/

lyrics

sometimes i wish we could start back
at the beginning. turn our existence into a videotape
call it Life. then push Life into a VCR.
press PLAY then PAUSE and get the chance to
REWIND with our image still on screen
watching everything that ever meant anything reverse
with the push of a finger.

if we could press REWIND
the wrinkles on these God given shells would smooth
into soft unscathed skin. we’d awaken from tombs,
arise from the earth like trees living to become seeds,
and i guess that means as babies we’d go back in to our mother’s wombs.

if we could press REWIND
mothers or fathers who abandoned
their daughters or sons wouldn’t walk away but return,
run backwards turning towards their children.
then they’d never have to look into eyes
that ever saw them as unworthy of keeping.
history wouldn’t repeat, but instead fold into itself
like disease-ridden blankets rolling themselves back up
like yo-yos returning to the hands that made those hateful gestures
in the first place. battles wouldn’t end
in bloodshed, but instead a ride off into a sun rising
with warriors always returning from war
or boarding schools with their hair flowing behind them in lengths of rivers.

REWINDing, would mean
handing in our diplomas & going back to school
to unlearn all the lessons ever taught to us. we’d start
books at their ending, unstring sentences into letters until
all we were left with was sound waiting
to come out of our mouths. like my friend Angel,
his would open to fountain gallons of vodka
from liver, his throat would spill it back into bottle
after bottle after bottle after bottle
that he’d set back onto the shelves of a liquor store
he’d walk out of in a line so straight it’d lead him
to the day Angel’s father cut off his wings when he left him,
fatherless, falling asleep on a bench.

REWINDing,
he’d unfreeze to death as warmth re-entered
his body convulsing not in dry heaving but reheating
detoxing into calm as snowflakes would slowly rise back up to the sky.
the kind of miracle time travel – imagine,
needles sucking poisonous drugs from addicted veins, pills
un-dissolving into wholeness being pushed back into containers
fitting just right. everything would be all right.
especially for our youth who contemplated taking their own lives
or committed suicide would feel blood flow back into open cuts,
their veins pulsing with life that knows it’s worth saving
so much that determined hands repeatedly pull away razors
from wrists until every scar slowly disappeared leaving behind no trace,
not even the memory. and every fist that hit someone in rage or abuse
would loosen into outstretched arms to call you home
instead of the bullet shaped holes being shot into bodies
making their way back into the guns or mouths
that shot them in the first place.

if we could REWIND
maybe i could remember
if i ever said anything to hurt Angel.

if we could REWIND,
my Angel would be able to fly
backwards, defy gravity, lift himself up and
life would be breathed back into him
as he unwrapped the rope from his neck
to inhale sweet and ever expanding air into his chest.


if we could REWIND
i could tell Angel, over & over i loved you
and it would always always start with –
you, alive & well and not me.
i’d give up every poem i have ever spoken,
have my mouth call back each and every one of them
from your ears back into my pen
’s failed attempts at putting back together
all the splintered pieces of our
hearts our hearts our hearts
our hearts staring at a blank page,
wishing we could

begin again.

credits

from The Bridge, released September 1, 2017

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Frank Waln Rosebud, South Dakota

Award winning Hip Hop artist/producer from the Rosebud Reservation.

Sicangu Lakota.

contact / help

Contact Frank Waln

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Frank Waln, you may also like: