VIII. Get Free (Reinvention)

Lyrics

[Verse 1] To my people that have transitioned to another plane Get free To you, the witness of what love does to the brain Get free To my friends for loving me, though they don't always know how To my body for housing a trauma that is timid To the holes in my jeans, to my wide hips and my lips, for always being uncontainable [Verse 2] I want to love this city The street I grew up on, where three men, brown as church pews, roll in dirt as cops suffocate their wistful wrists, dogs sniffing through the newly built house that has since been boarded up You know, the corner store, where Ramey and Stalcup meet, where I first smoked weed with a young boy in orange shoes who now rocks an orange jumpsuit The brown sauce smothered pork chops and Stormie Monday's that fill your tummy till you feel a kind of heaven. Yo, I want this city to be loved for downtown and the hood equally When I went to university up the street, they told me not to drive past the train tracks because it's sketchy Like being thrust into whiteness isn't sketchy enough, like wax dripping candles at high school vigils aren't just as pretty as the Parade of Lights on Seventh Street I hate to love this city When a stop sign on Berry has "6" painted under Stop, so you know what hood it is, where I first felt love, like true, true love breathing on the side of my neck, on the littest of school nights from a boy who these days, pushes daisies Damn. I love this city Lay on the wood and rusted nail where Southside and the Burbs meet long enough, you'll hear Church ladies, humming [Verse 3] And nobody could have predicted this prickly upper lip, demiqueer, picture it: 12 year old rockin cornrows, always dressed in pastels and sporting feathered eyelashes from clucking one too many a chicken head, always palms down on any school lunch table, 12 to 12:30pm The complicated relationship with home, though home should never be jeopardized. Besides, I'm 12, too young to hold a story no one listens to, too busy beating on lunch on tables, wondering what it takes to be a little less visible [Verse 3] Get free I want more For you. I want More for love After this, we'll be free