Sipping earl grey in a coffee shop And I imagine myself sitting all alone In an empty tub and my phone is off Blue light flashes as I romanticise ceramic on my back bones I fantasise, they tantalise, they think they’re wise Little squares bounce back and forth before my eyes Little wings flutter like butterflies, little words, little buttons To keep me occupied personalised and hand delivered My daily newsletter full of terror so we’re terrified Big fonts compete for my attention Big brands scramble to grab a mention An influencer’s influence is only for a second But fame in the immediate is always gonna beckon Follow me, she says I promise you I can help I can fix your body or your relationship with yourself Click here to build your wealth But while you’re still depressed, don’t forget to ring that bell Your history’s a secret I promise I won’t tell unless You used a slur before you learned how to spell With your private school friends in your private school uniform That’s why you’re excommunicated from your platform That’s why you gotta be educated and diligent 'Cause to be complicated is to be complicit But refusing to participate is to miss it And if I'm honest I admit that I'm addicted and that’s why I'm Sipping earl grey in a coffee shop And I imagine myself sitting all alone In an empty tub and my phone is off I underestimate an hour that becomes a day And now I'm looking at a future in the gutter But I investigate the ethics every time I pay to verify the company deserves a dollar 'Cause I’ve been burned before, haven’t we all? Whenever we ordered a pair of jeans From that online store that turned out to profit off of child labour What does it cost to know what your clothes are made of? But I accept a burden that I shoulder Because I kept a family inheritance I want to protect A process of keeping my class in check But what would change if mr musk operated the same way And Bezos paid his employees the right pay And Zuckerberg gave minorities their say? Maybe it’s not so grey But I sit on a plane and I pray to stay grounded But I sit dumbfounded at the big cloud mountains There are icebergs in the sky and the billionaires sigh As their private planes pass by and clouds unload themselves On the waters below and the rivers become lakes As they overflow and the houses are destroyed As the floodplains grow but it’s beautiful to watch from the ozone And I want to do something with the money I’ve got But the companies are looking for somebody I'm not And the days are getting warmer and the planet’s hot But we’re all comfortable frogs in the boiling pot So I'm still sitting still because I almost forgot About how tired every choice makes me It’s a lot and the fire feels fake when it’s tying a knot Preparing a noose before we all get shot. We’re all paralysed Sipping earl grey in a coffee shop And I imagine myself sitting all alone In an empty tub and my phone is off Huh, no wonder we’re all so stressed Our choices committed under future duress A generational inherited aversion to rest I confess I write what I cannot attest I'm always a guest, and never belong We try our best but keep getting it wrong Learn to resist but still singing their songs In between two oceans but the current’s strong Embedded in the west but my roots wonder, do I belong there? Where my blood and my skin reside, iI’ve never gone there Stuck allocate a place to breathe But never allow enough time and space to grieve I sit and I bow and listen and receive But sometimes the work just deepens the fatigue Going to church and learning to weave All these threads into theology that I can believe How do you take your tea? If you’ve only got bags, don’t give me green I’ll drink it black if you’ve got full cream Don’t you think your demands are a little extreme? IIguess I’ll take it normally then And keep that in mind for next time when I'm ordering then 'Cause no offence to your palette the next time I vote with your ballot Sipping earl grey in a coffee shop And I imagine myself sitting all alone In an empty tub and my phone is off