Sabzi - Selfportrait lyrics

(Verse 1) Shorty feels the pressure on his shoulders as he's lifting it Wonders why the elders always tell him not to question it Options at the bottom of the ladder got him desperate But all he ever wanted was a weapon to protect him with Riding a 36 through the veins of the beacon The water is the heart, its raining when its beatin In the city that I sleep in I'm dreaming while I'm awake The miserable escape and they're too high to ponder faith But who am I, to use their plight to illustrate a rhyme With everything around me that I've never had to live, but I Observe the inequalities to serve the people properly Tell them that their freedom isn't found in private property Prostitutes are more than just the folks who sell their bodies See this sh** applies to those whose souls are a commodity I can hear the colony calling me back to be The bullet in the belly while they lock, load, and squeeze (Chorus) Rebel with a pen letting off buckshots in threes Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be They made a mockery out of the possibility But under constant revision is the poem that I be Rebel with a pen letting off buckshots in threes Rewriting what it is into what it ought to be I be the emcee in the place not to be But under constant revision is the poem that I be (Verse 2) Shorty feels the pressure on his shoulders as he's lifting it Wonders why the elders always tell him not to question it Conjuring the courage just to conquer whats been k**ing him He says it's f**ed up cause he knows no other synonym Hidden from the truth, seen youths turned to troops Whose goal at 21 is to turn 22, true tuition's too high And those with the privilege to pay don't listen, it's a shame, go figure, in The name of the father, the son and holy lyrics I suppose those who know what I'm saying when they hear it Might rage against the system, or hate me for dissing The house in which they live in as a slave to the rhythm But I walk the broken sidewalk paved with the magic Of those who walk past it, just to survive traffic If paybacks a b**h, gravity's a ba*tard Avenues I used to call familiar turned backward (Chorus) Under constant is the poem that I be (X3) The poem that I be (X3) Under constant is the poem that I be (X3) The poem that I be (X3) (Verse 3) Yo ... shorty's getting grown old enough to read the messages Understands the elders as he then begins to question them One generation handed down what they've inherited Another generation rewriting the master narrative Older folks overdose on broken hopes often Children then begin to grow comatose and lost up In the clutches of the wickedest fingers Indicative of the systems inhibited Ability to listen to the voice of the dying who've been tired of crying Nightsticks fall where projectiles are flying Through a straight path narrow like the gap between heaven and hell They skip cla** cause they know it's a jail, true Students prevail when the knowledge is pa**ed But others sent to fail sitting flat on their a** And now I be the emcee in the place not be Under constant revision is the poem that I be (Chorus)