So Much Dread
So much dread
For no reason.
So much wasted energy
So much for nothing.

The mind wants what it wants.
It speaks in tongues
And haunts your thoughts.
Writes your name on the cement wall.
And makes you guilty
When you haven’t done anything at all.
Can’t figure out this energy.
Is it unwavering, like the flag?
Furled, in retainer?
Where is my simple sip of sunshine?
That makes me unwind and smile?
Why do I have to stand crooked
Amongst pillars?
What is my purpose
To walk the saintly mire?

Think?

My mind begins to spin out of control.
All I want is inner calm.
Like a still pond.
Like an empty sieve.
Where is my piece?

I woke up early, watch the birdie.
This sound is gonna get ugly
So watch me, girly.
Yeah, about a quarter of nine,
I thought, started thinking it’s my time.
Got too many dreams,
Telling me too many things
So I got to chill, and see what tomorrow brings
I feel life could be easier,
A pizza, extra cheesier
Without the negative thinker.
Soul swinger? Bone collector?
Writing over a rhythm
Rhyming rejection.
With a beat, I feel complete,
Typing in my seat, driving to compete
With no one, ’cause no one can compete?
Without God, I am incomplete.
I need sunshine on my shadow.
Writing to release, and think, happy meadows.

Pete Rock.
You are my drug of choice.
Your beats got me banging
Using my voice.
You got the boom bat
That make things all right again
Makes me spaz with the pen
In the morning and the evening.
I wake up with a cup of coffee.
But when I get down to Pete Rock,
He makes me stop, listen to the beat drop
The mind stops killing me for a second
Over, and over this mental molesting.
Wish I could breathe it in, the music,
To calm my head, and ease the bruising
But my mind is my mind, that’s the cross I bare.
Wish I was a goalie, with hockey hair like Atmosphere.
But no need to despair, we all go there,
Someday, but today is not my day, to go away.

Wish I could rewind back to like 89,
Playing basketball in my spare time in the sunshine.
Where my insecurities…I didn’t realize them or they didn’t matter.
I was in my mind, innocent, and soul filled with laughter.
I was chilling, that was the third chapter.
If you divide life up in threes
I’m almost done with chapter thirteen.
But back then,
I was chilling just a kid,
Living with a life, I could chill with.
I wasn’t worrying about death all the time.
My mind wasn’t raw, with a twist of lime.
But back then, when I was ten
I had a best friend.
Actually a few of them.
That was Chapter 3.

In Chapter 4.
There was still more love.
But let’s skip to the beat
And stop reminiscing
When we were children.
I got the microphone, beats, banging
Pete rock in my head, the only rock I’m slanging
Only slang I’m singing,
Writing from the back to the beginning.
Dope lyrics, the beat sounds better
Makes the cloud open up and sunny weather
Makes me feel better.
And that’s what I need on this Monday morning
Writing early though my head is storming.
Chilling on the microphone, a new day is dawning
Reading meditation, hoping that I’m learning
Putting out the fire, letting my mind mold.
Finding gold, in the pen that I hold
It’s so easy, to write like this
When I got a banging beat like this
With Pete Rock, putting me straight hypnotic
In a jazzy state, the boom bat, stops.
And that’s that. On to another track.

Pete Rock.

 

Jason Wright is the editor and founder of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly.