Run Free or Die

you say to me:
run free or die!
run free or die!
but i don’t want to run
can there be no happy middle-ground?
i don’t want to run
i want peace and love and happiness
and while we’re on the subject,
i want a pony. and a plane.
i will never get them
but i might as well say.
like peace and love and happiness

you say you’re up against the wall
with a magnum in your face
and you feel the sudden
                  impossible
urge to run and run and un
run free or die!
run free or die!
but i’m tired and bruised
and i couldn’t crawl another inch

you scream and shout and dance and rage
should you be wasting your energy?
aren’t you supposed to be running free?
running free or dying?
well, you’re not running anywhere…
you’re still right here
still screaming and shouting
and dancing and raging
and telling me all there things about being in a cage
unwanted sacrilegious cage
run free or die!
run free or die!

sweat breaks out
on your passionate forehead
no water could cool your flame
because you may be standing here
talking and ranting and raging and dancing
but on the inside
behind the wet forehead
behind the blinded eyes
you are doing everything you want
only
one
thing

run free or die!
run free or die!
the wall is hard and cold
just like the bullet in the magnum
just like the eyes of the one holding it
and you feel the wild urgency
of feet hitting the ground
and heartbeat raising not stopping
of tracks erased and unknown
cos inside you know
that magnum will never kill you
as long as your soul runs free
in the impossibly open fields
it runs and runs and runs
and runs.

your fever pitch approaching
everything starts boiling
in a wild fray of limbs and hair
run free or die!
run free or die!
you’ve lost your faith
in everything but the wall
and the magnum and the fields
cos how could you still say your prayers
say your still prayers
to the jesus that abandoned you?
and left you up against the wall
and without the legs to run
without hope or faith or love

but you will never stop shouting
and screaming and ranting and hoping and dancing
and the hopeful words resonate
with a hollow-sounding throb
run free or die!
run free or die!
how could you do anything else?
it’s been a long time since the slaves
but their bones and blood are all around
in the wall you find your back against
in the magnum against your face
but you can’t die, never will die
because you run free

you’re almost tapped out now
your words little more than obscenities
but one phrase repeated
as if repetition could stop the inevitable
run free or die!
run free or die!
almost done now
it’s almost time
time to put this eternity to a stop
a frantic screeching halt
the magnum blazes
your body falls to the ground
but you’re alive
because through all of this
all the screaming and ranting and shouting and dancing
you never stopped running
and your legacy lives

run free or die.