LOCKED UP

See me in my concrete box...  Locked down, locked up, locked away. From county jail to my crime infested compound in the free world, I still catch my sun through a space between bars.

Focus shifts from commissary to cat food but the struggle's still the same.

Treading water, I inch toward some other chapter, hopefully one which lacks in melodrama.

Watch me with my sawed off shotgun...  Pointed down, pointed up, pointed away toward a crime soaked past and the limbo within which the ghosts of said past writhe.

Thick sticky bitter mexican tar calls, some days louder than others.

Quicksand routine ensures that I may move forward, just not up.

Mediocrity realized.

Track marks frozen in time.

The hustle and bustle of boostin' and sellin.'

The dull point cuz there's no dollar twenty nine for new ones. Spent that on chocolate milk and cigarettes.

Broke down payphones on dirty ass corners, balloons stuffed in change dispensers.

Prostitute turnin' tricks in the next room, somehow sounds like two wet bags and a plunger.

Y las mujeres de mi raza?...

Son tecatas tambien. Junkies. Dope fiends. My people being eaten away by Emme y Syndicate.

Leather tanner and hydrochloric acid...For three hundred dollars.

With everyday that passes, your scent continues to dissipate, yet i am overwhelmed by my nostalgia on a daily basis.

There was a time when it felt cool to be a part of the dope slangin', heat packin' east side krew.

My ghosts are all locked up or dead now... a few of them broke out.  most of them still wake up sick...

And just because you held me as i kicked doesn't mean i owe you anything.

All i have to give is this diseased body, anyhow.

Through the waves of normalcy, this broken lifestyle has always been there, in the distance, beckoning me to give her just one more shot. one...more...shot..

Seduced by the prospect of belonging: code words, shooting galleries, familia, la raza.

We march through the littered streets; arms bruised, heavy lidded.

T.S. vs. emme, bloods against crips.

I got my nine to five and dope's got me...

Muscles aching, body temp fucked

Traded a gorilla for a monkey

Tryin' to do it right, though

I'm doin' somethin' amazing here, so step aside

Got obstacles like paperboy

And blues like Levi

Best friend became my worst enemy

Like plagues and tomatoes

I gravitate toward the dark side

Cuz it's cooler

And dangerous

But lately I've lost interest

In drugs that make me destroy

Myself, you and others

Grew a conscience

We on different pages

Like Castro and Guevara

I've got nothing left

But this baggie of the finest dope

Cookin' up my breakfast shot with rainwater

I Burroughed through your plastic heart

Acid and technology

1, 2 and it don't stop

Been waitin' for the beat to drop

For 29 years

Aching for a sharper mind

Ginsu knife

Sliced right through my ovaries

Past the point of no return

Only the lonely can do what I do

I broke you open yesterday

Fucking sick of this cliche

Narcissism

Been trying to catch my breath for ten years.
The superficiality of day to day life eclipsed by the unquenchable thirst for something greater.
A thirst kept at bay with a needle for the good part of a decade.
Modern technology spawning the narcissitic need to leave a legacy, something shared by an entire generation.
A generation of half assers; trapped in a perpetual, proverbial catch 22.
Ghosts of Christmas past haunting me, reminding me that I am only one small man in a lineage of men.
And at this moment, at this very precise moment, someone is being raped and murdered. Someone just found out that they have little time to live. A child has just lost his mother.
So much pain for every smidgen of beauty.
To find beauty in the pain is the only way to survive.
And to survive is a questionable goal.

Been trying to catch my breath for ten years.
The superficiality of day to day life eclipsed by the unquenchable thirst for somthing greater.
A thirst kept at bay with a needle for the good part of a decade.
Modern technology spawning the narcissitic need to leave a legacy, something shared by an entire generation.
A generation of half assers; trapped in a perpetul, proverbial catch 22.
Ghosts of Christmas past haunting me, reminding me that I am only one small man in a lineage of men.
And at this moment, at this very precise moment, someone is being raped and murdered. Someone just found out that they are dying. A child has just lost his mother.
So much pain for every smidgen of beauty.
To find beauty in the pain is the only way to survive.
And to survive is a questionable goal.