A Different Mirror

Let me tell you all a story
I'd like you all to
Take a walk alongside
Take a look at reality
Alternate reality
Your history
A Different Mirror

Am I my father's son?
Am I my forefathers son
When his poor daughter
Whore out of slums
My instrument
My heartbeat
My drum
Was stole
In the pits of a ship
As I squint for the sun
A heavy lash
Traveled
Hit my body mass
Split it into half
Cutting like
A razors edge or glass
So I laugh
Gotta be a dream
To be unfree
Starved hungry
Drug by a chain
Called ugly
Only my scars love me
Only the stars far from me
Charred by the tar
On a branch where they hung me
Burned through the blood
And the bone
As my soul rose
Landed in the stomach
Of my woman
Soon to be a mother
Snuck out of the slave quarters
Saw me sway beneath the moon
Raped so many times
That she was thought to
Have a barren womb
Haunted by the nightmares
I return in her dreams
9 months in the fields
No maternity leave
Traveled out the birthing channel
Minutes after I was born
Overseers came to
Snatch me
Right out of my mothers arms
Blood stains splattered on
Her tattered clothes
Weakened by the labor
She gets up to follow after slow
Crying screaming no
But I was sold
Worked hard until my death
And in that final breath
My soul left
And this curse lasts for centuries
If you've forgotten
Read your shirt tag
What percent is cotton

(chorus)

Beneath the stars
And calloused hands from
Working in the yard
They said they freed my people
Yet we still work on the farm
Several generations past
Emancipations gone
I moved off to the North
And volunteered to fight a war
The same strain of DNA
That slaved away
Is running through the swollen veins
Of he who joined the draft
To fight the German state
And as I held my rifle
And my Bible
Up against my rivals
Crawling under jagged wire
Tired
Prayed for my survival
Tapped the filter
Lit my cigarette
Frozen to the bone
Beneath the uniform
Yet dripping sweat
Beads under the army greens
With patches on the sleeves
Lying in a trench
I hope I'm catching no disease
After fighting for this country's
Freedom over seas
I return to burning crosses
Fire hoses and police
It was cool for me to risk my life
To fight the Reich
And go and shoot
But I can't feed my pregnant wife
Or go inside
The voting booth
So I
Break bricks
Break dishes
Shoot dice
Sip Sherry
Snort girl
Shot some boy-boy twice
Caught wind
Of a quick come up
Jewelry store heist
Said they need a gun man
To watch his back on Thursday night
I said all right
With that hunger in my eyes
A baby on the way
My woman's strong
But still she cries
So the plans devised
Meet on Wednesday to go over this
Life is such a gamble
With no poker chips
Leave the plotting meeting
Stop to call my woman on the pay phone
9 months she's pregnant
Swollen feet but she don't stay home
Working 'cross the tracks
Where don't know Blacks live at
Black child in Jeopardy
From cleaning White baby's cracks
Hello?
I just got up in something dangerous
She says if it'll get us out of poverty
She'll pray for us
She clutches on our baby
I hang up and walk into a store
Bump into a cop
While walking in
He's walking out the door
Pulled out his baton
His hand is on his holster
And the trigger
Swung and split my head
And said
You watch where you're going (Nigga)
Blood running down my face
Neck and back
I couldn't help but react
Smacked the pistol out his hand
Punched him in his face until it bled
Choked him by the throat
Until his eyes rolled back into his head
Before he died he struggled
Reaching out to get his gun
So inspire by it
I ain't even think to run
As the sirens sounded
I walked down the block
To catch a breath
A dozen cops surrounded
As I lit another cigarette
I yelled
I fought your war
To prove that I'm a man
They beat me til I died
But after cuffing up my broken hands
My soul rose
And landed in the stomach of my woman
As she knelt upon another
Pearly white floor humming
The comfort of this country
Has been built on so much misery
Know the history