SWEETDOMINION

You loved me in the open but not in the light I have whispered truth in the heat of the night In the sun we pass like strangers do But in your arms the world felt new They sold my skin and they called it mistake Said love like ours was a risk to take But we carried the quiet we carried the proud Even when the whispers got too loud Ours copper and cream your forbidden hue A prophecy some feared would come true In Lusaka that see me as out of place In Manchester rain just another face But love was our shield and also our chain Sweet as wine but it carried the stain You kissed me deep but I felt the divide And every touch was a war we both denied They said my blood was a map of the crime Drawn by hands that erased the time A child of two worlds that never agreed Born of want and the power's greed Yet you traced the scars like a secret chord Found beauty in the pain my history showed I wondered if love could rewrite the page Or if too it bowed to empire stage We walked through Saint Louis redlined streets Saw the same lines back home repeat Jim Crow shadows in Soweto's dust The same old cold eyes I refused to trust Our love felt older than we could tell Carved in some stone where our fathers fell But you smiled like dawn through the heaviest smoke And I breathed it in though I knew I'd choke They called me symbol they called me sin Couldn't see the person beneath my skin You called me home though the home was cracked Every wall a memory the past attacked I tried to believe we could outrun fate Write our own lines and clean the new slate Sweet Dominion Sweet, sweet Sweet Dominion Sweet, sweet But every kiss carried the weight of proof That even love bends beneath the truth Still I held on like a flag to the pole Though the wind was tearing the fabric whole You loved me loud when the doors were closed But love outside was the love they opposed In your eyes I saw what could be done The merging of rivers into one So I speak this now as the night leans in Love isn't free when it's weighed by skin It's the fire that warms and burns the same A truth too big for a lover's name I walked from your arms when the dawn appears With my pride intact and my heart in tears Some loves are sweet but the sweetest ones hit And leave you with ashes mixed in debt Sweet Dominion Sweet, sweet Sweet Dominion Sweet, sweet