[Intro]
[Instrumental: piano plays incomplete versions of the three-note motif with long spaces between phrases.]

A red line crossed the house in two;
One half was me, one half was you.
A clerk looked down and tapped the gap:
“You fall outside the proper map.”

[Verse 1]
[Female mezzo: displaced child]

They folded west where home had been,
Then drew a road through field and kin.
The wagon wheel, the soldier’s list,
The winter wrapped around my wrist.
A later child behind a wall
Heard unfamiliar officers call.
Different year and different track—
The map kept taking children back.

[Chorus]
[Both]

We are children of the broken map,
Folded through a courthouse gap.
Lines moved east, then lines moved west;
Every border failed the test.
No child was ever born a trap—
We are children of the broken map.

[Verse 2]
[Baritone]

A banker shaded blocks in red,
Then said the neighborhood was dead.
A highway split the school from home;
The tax line chose which child could roam.
A mother waited by a phone,
Her child detained beyond the zone.
The form was stamped, the file complete;
The law stayed clean; the room lost heat.

[Chorus]

[Both]
We are children of the broken map,
Filed beneath a numbered tab.
Lines moved north, then fences rose;
Every border changed our clothes.
No child belongs inside a trap—
We are children of the broken map.

[Interlude]
[Instrumental: cello holds one low note while piano taps uneven five-beat figures.]

[Bridge]
[Adult ensemble: child perspectives, no imitation]

My road was marked removal.
Mine was marked unfit.
Mine was drawn in mortgage ink.
Mine was a detention grid.
Different hands held different pens;
The line divided all our beds.

[Break]
[Spoken ensemble]

A map can guide.
A map can hide.
A map can place
A law inside
A bedroom door,
A schoolyard gate,
A family meal,
A child made late.

[Buildup]
[Ensemble]

Give us paper.
Give us thread.
Place the missing roads in red.
Mark the homes the state denied.
Draw the children back inside.

[Final Chorus]
[Ensemble]

We are children of the broken map,
No more folded through the gap.
Lines moved east and walls moved west;
Still our stories outlasted the test.
No child was ever born a trap—
We are children of the broken map.

[Coda]
[Ensemble]

We unfold the page and draw each other back.

[Outro]
[Both]

The map is torn.
The road is clear.
Draw every child
Beside us here.
