Crevice

Close the door, lock it, I couldn't face the mirror

Feeling inferior, trapped in dark interior

Clothes folded neat, but complete was not the person

So he groves in the dark, cause his real life's a worse one

Born on the 3rd of July when the stars in his eyes

Twinkle dim when his pops fade his grim

Raised with a brother, sister, mama found the answer

God grabbed my pops by the arm, a leg of cancer

Now these events took the boy back by leaps and bounds

Now this one sound, ten year old boy's life is shifted

When the drifter drifts on plywood

Tried to take his father's place in fatherhood

Puts his foot on pops throne, his mommy wants to bone

Her daughter may be next if he can get past her brother

Now shit is getting tense without sign of potential

Cause decisions have been made and over mommy's influential

That lazy nigga rides the smoke rising to the end of fables

So entrust in pots and pans for scraps from kitchen tables

Saying to herself, stop the fighting fellas, please

For her own security, mommy's dissing me for P-E-A-C-E

With words that cut the eldest son deep down to size

To make him realize relatives is relative

If they ain't got their own

His presence takes up space, I wanna bash him in his face

You know who you are

You never cared about my mother, put my pride into your car

Telling me I'll never make it, but I didn't throw a fit

I just told you to your face that I think you full of shit

Now I walk with heavy load and bottled up I hide inside it

Emotions, losing motion, started screaming from the closet

Now I remember pops was 5'4"

He used to chain smoke, read a book a

Night and taught his eldest how to draw

He'd deliver, sis, right in the living room

In the Boogie Down Bronx and loved Gladys Knight's tunes

But a snot-nosed kid and report card grades don't mix

Especially when you're a bully bashing heads with stones and sticks

So when he got mad, my black turned white from the fright

Of the fear of the belt on his waist hit the rump of my rear

In the rear of his leg was the stain of Agent Orange over years

Results of a pimp limp dependent on a crutch

Leaving leg sedated that eventually was amputated

Diagnosed as cancer, leading to therapy

My life story's purgatory, a sickness had us itch

Is this my family a unit dead to bad health, no wealth

Or a clue, so all you do is watch him decay before your eyes

And hope the big guy in the skies hears your pleas

But he's too busy with the world to care a desperate son on his knees

Especially that Sunday when his eyes opened wide

When he turned to his maker, kissed his family goodbye

But the next day was school, thinking pops was getting better

As mom burst in my room with the news of no surprise

As she held me in her arms and told me that your father died

And he knew it all along and bottled up he hid inside it

Emotions, losing motion, started screaming from the closet

Whether it's right or wrong, now daddy's gone, that's on the real

Mommy's in man's place, got three kids and paying bills

Without support, perish the thought the fort was stable

Tip-top shit was home sweet home, worked her fingers to the bone

By her lonesome, she was able to ditch the cards of life had dealt

Who mostly felt the burden of her

Stomach's yearning in the early morning

Yawning, but the new day was dawning, cause every dog got today

So she held her head up high so her children had no limits but the sky

Boy, speak when you spoke, she was strict like no joke

Swinging on my upbringing cause she pushed a kick in the tush

Daily, that's what most of us need and it worked like a charm

Giving props to my moms, but I got no more tears

With these feelings bottled up for years

So now I fold my cards on the table and light up the lamp

And place my hand on the knob to turn but not to look back

Inside it, emotions lose their motion as I step out of the closet