2. 1,000 CHANCES

Bought chances by the hundred Till the room looked like odds Seeds packed together Like they all auditioning for God Seven in a pot Roots wrestling underground I wasn’t raising everybody I was looking for the one crowned Thousand chances underneath fluorescent skies Everybody start alive, not everybody qualify If pressure make you fold, I don’t hate you, that’s design The garden tell the truth before the grower ever lie Thousand chances One gotta talk different Thousand voices One gotta walk different Anybody can look pretty when the environment forgiving I wanted something beautiful that was stubborn about living Warehouse felt like a genetic combine No participation trophies growing under these lights Structure, vigor, color, nose Who got something nobody else knows? I wasn’t asking who’s good I was asking who’s strange Who’s doing something so different The whole definition gotta change Mushroom spore watching from a crack in the wall Said nature don’t pick favorites Nature pressure-tests them all Thousand chances One gotta talk different Thousand voices One gotta walk different Anybody can look pretty when the environment forgiving I wanted something beautiful that was stubborn about living People look for needles inside haystacks I planted the haystack.