mama said “son, don’t u dance with the devil in silence” (but silence keep u safe… till the demons get violent) I been moonwalking thru riots, black smoke, blue sirens, church pews with the hymns, gang ties with the sins, I seen halos on my kin while they drown in they gin… (drink till the pain gone… pain never leaves though.) every prayer feels like rent I can’t pay, collect calls from the grave like “r u still okay?” (tell em u fine… even if ur soul broke.) but the block don’t sleep, it just roll new dice, I got family in the ground and they paid that price. blood on the ledger, GOD keep the record (he watching) weight on my shoulders but I still feel measured, storm in my city, no peace in the weather, I’m just tryna live forever, live forever…(but forever’s just a rumor) live forever, live forever… concrete veins, asphalt in my lungs, where I’m from they turn false prophets into church tongues, (holy smoke, holy ghost, what the message becomes…) sermons in the alley, preachers with a ski mask, politics dirty but the streets gone need a relapse…flip it on the news, they just edit out the truth, broadcast fear in the tube, then they profit off the youth (u watching or you working?) C, my mind like a war drum, beating loud with a sore thumb, I can’t numb the pain so I paint where I come from… If the dream too costly, who gone buy it? (not them) if the truth too loud, who gone quiet (everybody) I been screaming from the corner but the echo get lost (dead air) freedom got a fine print, and we paying that cost. (everyday) blood on the ledger, GOD keep the record (he watching) weight on my shoulders but I still feel measured, storm in my city, no peace in the weather, I’m just tryna live forever, live forever…(but forever’s just a rumor) live forever, live forever… bury the burden, I’m burning the sermon, I’m swerving the serpent, learnin to surface in currents that pull every purpose, verses in cursive, I’m curving the nervous, observing the circus, workin the word into weapons, they’re certain to worsen—snap like a Polaroid, paranoia, paramedics, pistol in the panorama, preachin while the panic’s hectic, plantin every plot like it’s Pangaea in the pandemic, pages full of prophecy, properly put the past in metrics, mind like a monsoon, magma in the mantle, manipulating matter till the math is hard to handle, manual labor for the paper, pain is in the sample, candle in the hurricane, I’m standing with the vandals… blood on the ledger, GOD keep the record (he watching) weight on my shoulders but I still feel measured, storm in my city, no peace in the weather, I’m just tryna live forever

Live 4ever