[Intro]
Under the ring road
Rain through the seams
Cardboard walls
And interrupted sleep

[Verse 1]
A mother warms a bottle there
Above a candle in the air
Beside her, Frank from Number Nine
Lost his room on closing time
Two languages share one flame
Neither hunger needs a name
Eli hears a distant plane
And feels the old dust in his veins

[Pre-Chorus]
One crossed an ocean in the dark
One lost a flat beside the park
One came home with half a crew
Pain changed coats, but passed straight through

[Chorus]
No border stopped the pain
No checkpoint stopped the rain
No passport held the roof in place
When debt came through the frame
No border stopped the pain
It only changed the road
We carry different photographs
But bend beneath one load

[Verse 2]
Nadia translates a medicine label
Mara checks the child is stable
Tom gives up his leather coat
Then swears he does not feel the cold
Jonah brings the factory tarps
They stretch them tight between the marks
On concrete stained by winter smoke
A dozen strangers share a joke

[Pre-Chorus]
The papers count them as a threat
The city counts them as a debt
But no report can photograph
A child asleep on Jonah’s lap

[Chorus]
No border stopped the pain
No checkpoint stopped the rain
No passport held the roof in place
When debt came through the frame
No border stopped the pain
It only changed the road
We carry different photographs
But bend beneath one load

[Instrumental Break]
Melodic octave guitar rises over a steady tom pattern

[Bridge]
Eli tells the mother softly
“I once stood armed beside your town”
She does not offer absolution
She only sets the kettle down
Then says, “The men who drew the maps
Never slept where buildings fell”
Two hands meet around a cup
With more to learn and less to tell

[Breakdown]
Your side
My side
Words from guarded rooms
This child
That child
Breathing through the fumes

[Final Chorus]
No border stopped the pain
So no border owns our care
No flag decides who gets the coat
Or who may shelter there
No border stopped the pain
No speech can make it clean
We know the hands that raise the walls
And hands that pass between

[Outro]
Morning traffic starts above
The underpass begins to shake
On one grey pillar Tom writes:
“No one freezes while we wake”