[Intro]
Fence in the dust
Boots in the mud
Paper says border
But borders have blood

[Verse]
A child draws a house on the back of a form
The tent starts shaking in the pre-dawn storm
Her mother keeps counting the names in the line
While drones hum low over razor and sign

The officer says it is procedure today
The minister says there is no other way
The camera says crisis, the market says flood
But nobody says that borders have blood

[Pre-Chorus]
Every stamp is a verdict
Every gate is a bruise
Every law has a body
When the powerful choose

[Chorus]
Borders have blood
Running under the wire
Borders have blood
In the smoke and the fire
Borders have blood
No matter what they claim
You can call it policy
But a wound still has a name

[Verse]
She records the old man with the photograph torn
A village behind him, a grandson unborn
He says I had a garden, I had a door
Now I have a number and a concrete floor

The map in the office is tidy and flat
No smell of the hunger, no sound of the rats
No fever at midnight, no child in the flood
No red line showing that borders have blood

[Pre-Chorus]
Every stamp is a verdict
Every gate is a bruise
Every law has a body
When the powerful choose

[Chorus]
Borders have blood
Running under the wire
Borders have blood
In the smoke and the fire
Borders have blood
No matter what they claim
You can call it policy
But a wound still has a name

[Instrumental]
Bass crawls dark through concrete halls
Guitar feedback climbs the walls
Drums like fists on locked steel doors
Static voices counting scores

[Bridge]
You say security
She says grave
You say movement
She says slave
You say pressure
She says son
You say border
She says run

[Breakdown]
Open the gate
Say the names
Count the dead
End the games
Open the gate
Say the names
Borders have blood
And power has blame

[Build-up]
The crowd starts singing
Beyond the fence
A song with no passport
A song in defense

[Chorus]
Borders have blood
Running under the wire
Borders have blood
In the smoke and the fire
Borders have blood
No matter what they claim
You can call it policy
But a wound still has a name

[Chorus]
Borders have blood
And the cameras look away
Borders have blood
But the people make them stay
Borders have blood
From the river to the stone
No empire owns the living
No empire owns a home

[Outro]
Fence in the dust
Boots in the mud
Paper says border
But borders have blood