Words are unstoppable
Words may be spoken
Words may be written
Words may be thought
Night falls over the day
Night falls over the block
Night falls over the hood
Night falls over us
First as the dusk
Then as the stars
We can see nothing
Street corners light
Streetlight too bright
We can see nothing
Too bright but never enough.
We can see nothing of hope in the cosmos
We carry our blinded eyes in our hands
Buy me a knife.
Buy me a gun.
Find me behind the barrel,
I'd rather be first in line,
I will secure first place.
Buy me a knife.
Buy me a gun.
Find me shaking the iron sights,
I'd rather be running away from the system,
I will do what I must.
Take our education, expect us to grow.
Take our nutrition, expect we maintain.
The gatekeeper looks less like St. Peter
Than it looks like a bank.
Make it for money,
Expect we be happy
For the physical.
Make it vanity,
Expect our diminished state
Be aspiration and dream enough.
Words are unstoppable,
I know this to be true.
Where are the words
We need the most?
We cry for each other in night,
Each broken compatriot
Each potential confidant
Convinced we're abandoned
Convinced we're at war with the poor
Then at war with ourselves
Expending bullets for the clout on the shelf.
I am in here just as you so put that down.
I am in you, and I need your words to tell,
To touch, to show,
Those with nothing know what more there is than this.