Gas fees up. Rent pressing the rafters. Dream on the stove, still simmering after. Fence gone dull, porch bulb hanging by a thread, Boss counts my hours, rent counts what I said. They sell a clean screen, call it progress neat, Fridge still loud, cupboard still thin this week. Turnstile grabs the last coin from my hand, Leaves me a password and a bill I can’t stand. I’m reaching for a way to build from grit to grace, Trying to keep my name when the whole thing shakes. [Bridge] Streetlight leaking through a dirty pane, Couch sagging low, same stain, same stain. Kitchen bulb stutters, half-dead overhead, Floorboards talking back with the steps upstairs. Eviction notices stacked by the door, Pizza box grease on the linoleum floor. Thin walls carry every fight next door, Each creak in the boards keeps wanting more. Man gets stripped down when the noise falls away, No filter, no polish, just the truth in the clay. AI keeps talking like it knows my soul, But it only maps the cracks, it don’t make me whole. It can sort the data, line the bones in a row, Still can’t tell me where my prayers go. Lego my Eggo, I’m bent through the frame, Just looking for a Word that can call my name. (Beat drops: a heavy, dusty 2000s boom-bap drum loop with a haunting minor-key piano vamp and a low, menacing bassline) They prime the nightly news with a face from far away, Paint the screen red so we don’t ask who’s to blame. Keep the panic button flashing, keep the crowd afraid, So nobody looks at the mess they made. They want our eyes out there, on a fake front line, While the bank account drain gets called “a sign.” They wave the flag hard, sell the old scare play, When the real wolves feed off what we pay. We’re not shaking at the stories that they spin, We’re waking up to where the rot lives in. Eight percent on a degree that never paid, For a paper promise in a decade delayed. Deans in clean suits cashing out the scheme, While some machine learns how we bleed. Student loans got us pinned to the page, Signed at eighteen, hunted by age. And don’t get me started on the ones with the keys, Boomers bought the view and locked the gate with ease. Pulled the ladder up, called the kids unwise, Then sold the neighborhood under open skies. Turned homes into chips on a builder’s table, Left the rest of us trying to stay stable. Now they preach from the porch about “earning your way,” Like mercy ever came from a locked front gate. Follow the money, watch the suited men fold, Every promise traded for campaign gold. Paid-off senators, thumbs on the scale, Smiling like saints while the rest of us fail. Bipartisan stalling, same old puppet show, While the working class keeps getting told to go slow. Groupthink marching in a neat straight line, Calling fear a fact and a script a sign. Big Pharma in the lobby with a price on breath, Charging like the body signed a contract with death. Pills for the panic, pills for the blues, Anything to keep us too numb to choose. Swipe the card, let the balance wake, Paying interest on eggs, on milk, on steak. Minimum payments on a mountain of stress, Living on credit just to pass the test. And health insurance? Man, that’s the last trick, A maze made of paper and a denial that sticks. Pay every month for a maybe, not a yes, Get sick and they hand you the fine print mess. Pre-existing buried deep in a file, Smile when they stall you, stall you another mile. Catch hell in the land that swears it’s free, They bill you for the room and the IV. So cut the fear loops running on the screen, Just smoke and mirrors for a machine too mean. We’re not scared of borders or the names they paint, We’re trying to survive what made the whole thing faint. Cold Case style, looking past the mask, Unmasking the machine is still the task.
