Author’s lyrics from the final package. Audio comparison follows upload.
The banners came down.
The river
kept moving.
No drum.
No order.
Only cloth
and names.
They brought me coats without their bodies,
sleeves gone stiff beneath the red.
Gold for one side.
Black for another.
Both were carried by the dead.
The crown had counted every absence,
marked the losses line by line.
I took the colors to the water.
I would not wash
the names.
No rank in the current.
No banner in the rain.
Take off the number.
Leave me
the name.
The crown counted bodies.
The river kept their names.
It washed the colors from the cloth,
not memory,
not blame.
The crown wrote victory.
The river answered plain:
No body dies
as number here.
Give back
the name.
One sleeve had carried someone's emblem.
One hand had carried someone's blade.
I do not wash the guilty clean.
I do not make the dead the same.
I strip the banner from the body.
I leave the deed for truth to weigh.
A name is not an absolution.
A name
is what remains.
Bring me no legend.
Bring me no side.
Tell me who entered.
Tell me
who died.
The crown counted bodies.
The river kept their names.
It washed the colors from the cloth,
not memory,
not blame.
The songs chose heroes.
The lists chose loss and gain.
I kept the human
under both.
Give back
the name.
Your victory needs numbers.
Your history needs sides.
A mother does not bury losses.
She buries
who has died.
The field can keep the argument.
The court can weigh the blame.
The dead are more
than what they served.
Do not take
the name.
The crown counted bodies.
The river kept their names.
It washed the flags
from every sleeve,
not memory,
not blame.
Your victory kept the border.
Your songs kept loss and gain.
I kept what neither side could own.
I kept
the name.
They called me
keeper of the dead.
No.
The dead
were never mine.
The crown
could count their bodies.
I would not give it
their names.