I used to not care, when everyone seemed to care. Now that I care, no one seems to care. We fire invisible flares in the air that are full of despair, come and share a moment where I stay.
These days you gotta be down, I’m already knowing aint nobody got my back, Electronic Bank Transactions replaced food stamps as a plastic form of attachment. These credits get sold 50 cents on the dollar, no ID required when you swipe it at the teller, if you want the hook up, let me know and I will tell her: don’t judge, she does it to keep up with bills and make her rent, cause the weekly paycheck gets spent on la cundina that keeps meals in la cocina, no cozy net for violet, plus her 2 year unemployment benefit has been exhausted, she swore she had a dream but she don’t know where she lost it. Maybe her son stole and sold it for a bag of tweak. She used her tax refund to bail him out the same week. He promised to reform but his will is awful weak, plus the attorney won’t proceed without his full retainer fee, she lies and promises she sent the payment in the mail, and that she couldn’t drive because her car is unavail. She got sold a lemon, first week the starter failed, but she signed a contract with no buyback on the fine print caption, she needs to take action with the bank fore she runs out of options, this is what she ponders while she scrubs a shitty toilet, in a house she’ll never own, that thought alone hurts cause she knows it, commutes three hours away just to earn a daily wage to get by where I stay.
Here, there are food trucks with decaying supplies invaded by flies. The music blazes louder than a baby’s hunger cries, blaring from a car with the homies riding by, while momma is asleep in the bedroom on the other side, of the wall dreaming of a place where she thrives and never stalls, does more than survives, stopped chasing waterfalls. Walter Mercado said her stars will align, instead she had too many kids and treats them out of line. Her head constantly throbs, for months she’s been between jobs, she’s been conditioned to believe she’s aint shit without a mop, tried to go to school, finish up her G.E.D., signed up for classes, same night: took an E.P.T., priorities shifted to an unwanted pregnancy, her attitude is “fuck it, I got 2 months before I show.” time to hit the club even though she got no dough. Dances all her pain away in oceans of adios, motherfuckers, purchased by the sucker that thinks that he can fuck her if he gets her drunk enough to mess with her self esteem, 15 minutes later: rocking bucket; windows steamed, all of this attention makes her feel almost famous, struggling against living life forever nameless, becoming just another face, in this place where I stay.
Papi works two jobs cause he has no way to legalize, despite his short comings he’s a stand up type of guy. Comes home; to his surprise that they turned off all his lights, wifey spent the bill money on shitty highlights and heels that make her feel good cause she paid less at payless, add some tights from los callejones and you got a ghetto mess. No dinner on the kitchen table she’s too lazy to be able, to pop some pop-tarts in the toaster with some tartar sauce for flavor. Instead… he’s welcomed by a sea of red papered bills that read: final notice, final notice, noticias finales de la ultima hora, someone lost the bottle cap so he sips on flattened soda. As he wonders how the fuck will he ever meet his quota, of paying all the bills climbing up the golden hill, only to discover that aint where they grow the dollar bills. Early on that day he walked to work 40 blocks, ripped his only pair of shoes and exposed his holey sox, didn’t have the money to fix his bicycle’s flat tire, couldn’t catch the metro cause his TAP pass had expired. Watching strangers raise his kids while he lives in the shadows, dreamer of a reform Act that’ll wash away his sorrows here where I stay.
Little Tony’s got no guidance, he’s a accustomed to domestic violence, at night he cries in silence, till he gets two heavy eyelids, he lives alone in an island within his fragile mind, mom brings home different guys but never asks if he minds, daddy left over some shit that he don’t understand, now he only gets to see this man on the weekends. Why is that? Cause where I stay, mothers are negligent, militant discipline is a threatening option, to the ears of single parented offspring, Darwinism makes us vicious, while the pigs make us suspicious. Abuse is silenced, cries go unheard, our lives are replicated, through modern spoken word, get educated in the cipher going on at the curb, Maybe that’s why I can never really adapt, anyplace too comfortably where I call a habitat. In the back of my conscious is where I keep my habits at. There’s a shortage of activists, many are hardcore pacifists, tired of the beef but don’t know where the action is, it takes more than a raised fist to bring change onto where I stay. Here in urban America is where I stay.
