Mean Streak

a meat wagon in the shadow of a tenement block

you got the pigs up in the stairwell

asking questions and taking down names

i say "that boy had a mean streak

i aint trying to be mean

hes just easy to hate

he had a spike in his veins for a number of years

its all cold memory now

he tells me that he has gone clean

a black white tv set up the back of his head

that shatters and shutters

but wont never go dead

that boy had it down

holier than thou

though he was dumber than a bag of hammers

i didnt know

hed pull the trigger

with his left big toe

well he shaved off his hair

leaving only the eyes in his head

and a hole for a mouth

that looked more like an asshole i swear

he never had no family hed sit up on the ledge

staring up at a moon that died in the nights arms

to keep watch like a ghost on his heart

in its throws and its calms

well it aint how you fall its how you land

id remind him...'life has its lessons'hed say

ill come good once i figure to learn them

i kicked junk with the bottle

now its merely a teething concern

he would tell me

but i had my doubts

a 13th floor bedsit a kitchen a couch

the only ways down

cause the bottom youll find

is much clearer to the eye than the top is the other way round"