Monster (Spoken Word)

I think I might be a monster
I know that might sound a little crazy, but, uh
I think I might be a monster
In my black suit and black shoes
Standing over this black box looking at you
I think this might've made me a monster
Women tell us that we look handsome at funerals
Dressed in our black
Almost look too good in what we'd be buried in
Like we're waiting our turn to be on our back

I think I might be a monster
Because I don't feel nothing
Ain't a tear drop came yet, and ain't a tear drop coming
I keep finding these stitches around my arms and backside
From trying to pull myself together
Too fast too many times
And I think this time
I might've pulled myself together wrong or something
I keep trying to pull the seams out
In hopes I'll fall apart for you
But underneath all I find is blood-stained concrete
And flowers and pictures leaned against phone poles
And messages to ghosts written in bold sharp
And day-old candle wax on my sneakers
As I stand here, head down, eyes closed
Like I've done so many times before
Trying to think of things to make myself feel something
Like I used to
And death don't bother me like it should
Like it would

I told my moms once that boys don't cry
That's something I can't do
She said, "You're right, boy's don't cry–
That's something a man do."
I guess expect women to show emotion
But you can't ask a man to
Because the minute a man do
Another man might get at you
Ain't that some type of beautiful monster?

I can't feel nothing
But walk like the rest of us
I talk like the rest of us
No lie, just a secret
But I know why us boys don't cry
Even though we try
It's cause I keep finding new stitches
Around my arms and backside every time somebody dies
And I can't find any tears for them
Staring at their picture
I hope I might feel something like the first time this happened
But the more this happens the more monster I am
In aisle 12
Staring, wondering what the pastor's gonna say
And tell me what the Lord's going to do
I'm a man who knows he can read
But can't make out the name on the program
Like it's not my friend
We're just all ends to this program
And after one or two of these programs
What the fuck are we supposed to do?
We're just kids

They say God is always watching
Well I hope he's watching this
I don't shed a tear when friends blow in the wind
We just make a T-shirt and we boast them instead
So in a sense they're in the ground
But the both of us dead
And the more of them in the wind
The more coldness is spread
I watch a lineup of young men
Grind their teeth like we speechless to what I speak, yes
Lest we forget that I've seen deaths
Never after full life just after full nights on the cement
And I see, yes
But see no CNN on my streets when it's all depressed
And heaving chest
And now a new seam stitched on my skin
To keep my need to weep suppressed another evening

I'm watching seasons change on a season pain
Nowadays we don't even see the rain
See death cursed us, made us seem insane
So now we're all surface, nothing deep remain
And every time someone dies it just feeds the flame
And we're all fiending to be unstitched
But no treatment came
So all the good men I know
Just seek to blame til the street looks like a chess board
Everybody with their pieces
Lined up on their corners
Making moves to check each other like this beef's a game
Got kings who won't budge – would rather be dead in a tomb
Queens who do it all for us – but we play them too soon
Pawns who run out and tease the platoon
Move foolish, get took, then we're back in our blocks
Suits in the back of the funeral
And I'm weak from this tomb

So we storm all the gates thinking this war has helped
Since we popped off but inside is a black box
I feel like I've seen so many times
I might as well just get in with myself
We have fallen apart
In the faith and face of death
Men have a word for standing their ground and being a soldier
Ironically, we call it heart
But love will get you killed
So we put ours in the dark

Under my black suit
Black shoes
"Oh, thank you baby,
You look good too"
She don't know that I'm a monster
We are turning into monsters
Can't feel shit
But walk like the rest of us
Talk like the rest of us
No lie, just a secret, but I know why
Us boys don't cry even though we try
It's because I've got a monster in me.