Even if it means keeping me up until 3:20 in the morning
Mama gotta live too
Playing tunes that I have no desire to hear in my ear
The sleep that I used to know
waves in the distance at me like an old friend who had to catch the next train to nowhere
Mama gotta live too
While the country is on edge from violence at every turn
and tensions of race and injustice fills the night air
like smog from a locomotive from times far gone
As black lives matter march through my town with fists upright both black and brown
I can't get no rest
I toss and I turn
In my bed
For sleep I softly yearn
Black sleep matters is my movement
But I can't breathe and I can't sleep either
A full days work awaits me in two hours
But mama gotta live too