They burned the books, they broke the names,
Sank the banners in the sea,
Said the past was dust and silence now,
A wound that ceased to be.
But when the drums of old wars sound,
And steel begins to sing,
My hands still shake with borrowed fear
I never learned to bring.
Blood remembers what minds try to forget,
Every oath, every scream,
It beats with ghosts beneath the skin,
It dreams the same old dreams.
You can bury truth in ash and law,
You can swear you’re clean and free—
But blood remembers what minds try to forget,
And it always comes for me.
I walk in peace my fathers stole,
I wear a borrowed crown,
Built on bones I never named,
On cities burned to ground.
The body knows the weight of chains
Before the mind can lie,
The scar will ache before the wound
Is spoken aloud in time.
Blood remembers what minds try to forget,
The cost behind the throne,
The children lost, the vows betrayed,
The debts we call our own.
You can teach the tongue to praise the past,
Teach the heart to bend and kneel—
But blood remembers what minds try to forget,
And it never stops being real.
