Why ask when they don’t bother, When the ones with all the power never show up for the father. Never show up for the mother, never show up for the block, But they quick to shut it down when the poor start to talk. Why ask when the help line freeze, When they cut off EBT like they tryna stop a breeze. Cooling off the streets while the hunger don’t ease, Files never get released, so we starve by degrees. Why ask when the doors stay shut, When the folks with all the keys keep the keys in a rut. Say “resources available,” but that’s talk on a screen, ’Cause the moment you apply, you get treated like you’re unseen. Why ask when the drought don’t break, When the rain never falls on the side that we take. They take vacay pay while we rot in the wait, Staring out the window with a mind full of weight. Why ask when they snoop through your life, Digging through your business like they sharpenin’ a knife. Tryna stop you in your tracks, tryna label your strife, But they can’t play me back ’cause I move like a wisp of life. Why ask when I’m in and out the frame, Family circus footsteps, never walking the same. In and out your window like a whisper with a name, Tryna win you over like smoke that never stays the same. Why ask when they don’t bother to see, When the help they never give made a sharper version of me. Still I rise through the drought, through the freeze, through the grind, ’Cause the help I never got made me strengthen my own mind.
