Leaving New York

6:05, Brooklyn Bridge:

failed and tongue-tied

body aching, hands shaking, bloody inside

still alive.

Sunrise like a pillar of fire,

still running like the static on a blank channel

sunken to the bottom of the barrel of a gun.

braced against the railing looking straight into the sun

like I was waiting for someone to burn a picture in my mind...

like i could recite scripture off the lids of my eyes...

fishing in the East River for a reason to die

voices whispered in my mind, I believe they were mine.

another pilgrim come to find that the bridge is a lie, and

there's nothing on the other side...

I was told to pick my battles. This isn't my war.

My fight is with myself. I'm leaving New York

Leaving my prayer rug in the apartment off Van Cortlandt

caught in constant paranoia coughing someone's jagged hallelujah

buildings like a burning cross, withdrawal,

the drive north, all five burroughs fall,

lizards listen through the walls, born into this funeral,

news of war from city hall, subway station, FDR,

tanks and guards, riot squad, movement of the violent mob

I dissolve

fall apart

dusted in the dark, watching the war start...

They're going to send us to the deserts of Mars,

where we'll die or go crazy with our legs blown off

don't want to suffocate in space

while God and the State face off

flags waving in the grey dawn,

better to break north.

I was told to pick my battles. This isn't my war.

My fight is with myself. I'm leaving New York

I never found solid ground

but slept in a burning bed

there's a couple landlords

with a bounty on my head

never learned to bend my neck

or to worship the dead.

metro card expired; hop a turnstile and then jet.

was I a coward to abandon,

the broken down mechanics

that crowned Biggie Smalls as the King of Atlantis?

"Like trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches"

the sea in which she vanished...

Lost Kingdom of Jay-Z and Def Jam Cannibals

beating a dead break on the decks of the Titanic

I am it but I can't fit.

so when the sky fell

I felt like one of the guilty

with the populace in lockstep,

ready to come and kill me.

Did Providence demolish the buildings

that rust and rot beneath the Hudson?

all of it came to nothing

and the devil's still running...

and the devil's still running...

I was told to pick my battles. This isn't my war.

My fight is with myself. I'm leaving.