Lyric

I sell the means so war can end—

A paradox between my hands

Call me merchant, call me friend—

I'll trade the night for steadier lands

Not for gold, not for praise

But for the silence after guns

If the price is my own malaise

Then price it—let the trading run

Maps spread like paper wounds across my floor

Names of nations scrawled along the spine

I learned their prayers are ledger lore

Their hope discounted in a single line

They keep their children in the grammar of war

Teach every noun to learn how to kill

I am the ledger they should abhor—

I write the invoice, then cash the will

You think me monstrous, turnkey saint

Purveyor of a bitter peace

But if the reaching hand must taint

Better my palms than a child's crease

I sell the means so war can end—

A paradox between my hands

Call me merchant, call me friend—

I'll trade the night for steadier lands

Not for gold, not for praise

But for the silence after guns

If the price is my own malaise

Then price it—let the trading run

There is a boy who watches me catalogue the dark—

Eyes like a compass, pointing where I bend

He calls me neither savior nor the mark;

He calls me simply "you" as if that could mend

I promised him nothing—promises are thin—

But in the hush between his breath and mine

I kept a ledger where his name sits in

I cannot barter that, not for any line

So call it hubris, call it a mother's lie

To think a trade could stop the bleed

Yet if to trade a storm I must buy

I'll be the one who deals the seed

I sell the means so war can end—

A paradox between my hands

Call me merchant, call me friend—

I'll trade the night for steadier lands

Not for gold, not for praise

But for the silence after guns

If the price is my own malaise

Then price it—let the trading run

I am no angel, no unmarked saint—

My ledger stains with readable blame

But angels never stood where I stand

They never learned to speak men's names

If peace must wear a counterfeit

Let me craft its seams and style—

Better a practiced counterfeit

Than children learning to compile

Trade with me, and hate me later—

Sign the line, then burn the flags

If ruthless hands must shape the crater

Let mine be steadier than their rags

I sell the means so war can end—

I bargain with the world I see

Not for glory, nor to pretend—

But to carve a quiet place to be

He watches, knowing all my faults

He does not clench—he only waits

Perhaps one day I'll close these vaults

And leave the market to the fates

Until that day, the counters run—

I sell to stop what I cannot fight

I am the merchant of the sunless gun—

I trade the tools to broker quiet