One More Chair

The news is running like a tap in the next room...
Somebody's always knocking after the news...
(set one more chair)
Somebody's always standing in the cold...
(set one more chair)

The radio's counting the countries again,
my mother turns the volume to the wall.
Prices climb the doorframe like a kid,
pencil lines we swore we'd never draw.
My brother and my uncle stopped agreeing
somewhere between a headline and a phone.
Two good men, one table, and a silence
you could set a whole plate on.
The kettle doesn't argue, doesn't take a side,
it just keeps boiling for whoever's outside.
Half the world is shouting through a screen tonight —
our little kitchen only holds the four.

Four plates down... and a fifth knock comes.
It's always the year at the door.
Say it in yours, I'll say it in mine —
(Pinda) (Entra) (Ahlan)
Whatever your word is, it means the same.

Set one more chair (pull it up)
The soup gets water, the bread gets shared
Let the news keep counting what it lost —
this table only counts who's here (who's here)

One more chair (hey)
One more chair (hey)
Pull it up, pull it up
(Pinda) (Entra) (Ahlan)
Doesn't matter whose flag, whose name, whose road —
Pull it up, pull it up
One more chair

Now it's April and the flour costs more,
the man from the third floor sleeps on our couch.
His daughter learned my language off cartoons
and calls my father "Baba" like she's ours.
We don't talk about the country that she left,
we talk about the cartoon and the rain.
There's a map on the wall with a pin still in it —
nobody here is brave enough to move it yet.
My uncle came back Sunday. Didn't say sorry.
Sat down. Ate. That was the apology.
My mother counts the rice like it's a language,
then looks at me and says, "Put out one more."

Six plates down... and the knock comes again.
Nobody knocks like that for fun.
Say it in yours, I'll say it in mine —
(Pinda) (Entra) (Ahlan)
Whatever your word is, it means the same.

Set one more chair (pull it up)
The soup gets water, the plate gets passed
Let the news keep counting what it lost —
this table only counts who's here (who's here)

I know the sound of a door that opens late.
I came with a bag and a coat that wasn't mine.
Somebody's mother looked at me and said,
"Sit down. You're thin. There's food."
I don't remember one word of her prayer.
I remember she moved the chair.
I have argued with this world about a hundred things —
that's the only sermon I still believe.

Pinda. Entra. Ahlan.
Whatever your word is — say it now.
Pinda. Entra. Ahlan.
Somebody's mother. Somebody's son.
Somebody who spelled their name for us twice.
Somebody's kid asleep on a suitcase —
somebody's out there in the cold,
and the plates are getting cold in here.

Set one more chair (pull it up)
The soup gets water, the bread gets shared
Let the news keep counting what it lost —
there's a chair at this table with your name

(Pinda) (Entra) (Ahlan)
Kettle's still on. Door's still open.
Set one more chair...
Pull it up, pull it up
Pull it up, pull it up