I Have Not Forgotten

They say I am mad.
They say the age of knights is dead —
that honor is a ghost,
that chivalry is a children’s story
told to those who never had to fight.
Perhaps.
But I have walked through their world —
this world of compromise and careful silence,
where men of title sell what men of honor died to build,
where corruption does not storm the gate…
it knocks politely.
And is invited in.
I have not forgotten what this world was made to be.
And until my lance is dust
and Rocinante carries me no more —
I ride.

VERSE 1 — QUIXOTE

There was a time when men knew what they carried
When a sword meant something more than steel and edge
When the weak could call and someone came to answer
And the powerful were bound by more than privilege
There was a code written not in law but honor
Every knight a guardian of the defenseless born
Not a title given — it was earned in service
And the moment that you failed it you were sworn

VERSE 2 — SANCHO

I followed him because he asked me kindly
And promised me an island — God knows why
A sensible man would’ve stayed home with Teresa
But here I am beneath this endless sky
He sees giants where I’m looking at windmills
He sees kingdoms where I’m seeing dirt and stone
And I’ll admit the man has lost his senses
But I have never let him ride alone

CHORUS 1 — QUIXOTE

I have not forgotten
What this world was made to be
I have not forgotten
What it costs to ride free
Where honor has been buried
I will dig until I find it
Where corruption holds the gate
I will break it from its hinges
I have not forgotten

VERSE 3 — QUIXOTE / SANCHO

They have dressed their greed in the robes of reason
Called their cowardice a practical mind
Every compromise another door that closes
On the ones they left so carefully behind
And I have watched him charge at what they laughed at
Seen him broken, bleeding, rise and ride again
And I can’t explain the things that I have witnessed
But I know this much — this man does not pretend

BRIDGE — SANCHO ALONE

He is down again.
Lance broken.
Armor split at the shoulder.
Rocinante standing over him
like she knows.
And I should go.
Teresa is waiting.
The island was never real.
I am a fat man on a donkey
who believed a madman.
But he got up.
Every time this world put him in the dirt
he got up.
Not because he was strong.
Because he could not imagine
being the kind of man
who stays down.
Maybe that’s what a knight is.

FINAL CHORUS — QUIXOTE AND SANCHO

I have not forgotten
What this world was made to be
I have not forgotten
What it costs to ride free
Where honor has been buried
We will dig until we find it
Where corruption holds the gate
We will break it from its hinges
I have not forgotten
Neither have I.

OUTRO — QUIXOTE

They will say we accomplished nothing.
That the giants were windmills.
That the princess was a peasant girl.
That the knight was just an old man
who read too many books.
Let them say it.