when it come back around
The purpose is in the lessons we learnin’ now
Sacrifice personal gain over everything
Just to see the next generation better than ours
I wasn’t perfect, the skin I was in had truly suffered
Temptation, impatience, everything that the body nurtures
I felt the good, I felt the bad, and I felt the worry
But all-in-all, my productivity had stayed urgent
Face your fears, always knew that I would make it here
Where the energy is magnified and persevered
Consciousness is synchronized and crystal-clear
Euphoria is glorified and made His
Reflectin’ on my life and what I’ve done
Paid dues, made rules, change outta love
Them same views made schools change curriculums
But didn’t change me starin’ down the barrel of the gun
Should I feel resentful I didn’t see my full potential?
Should I feel regret about the good that I was into?
Everything is everything, this ain’t coincidental
I woke up that morning with more heart to give you
As I bleed through the speakers, feel my presence
To my brother, to my kids, I’m in Heaven
To my mother, to my sis’, I’m in Heaven
To my father, to my wife, I am serious, this is Heaven
To my friends, make sure you countin’ them blessings
To my fans, make sure you make them investments
And to the killer that sped up my demise
I forgive you, just know your soul’s in question
I seen the pain in your pupil when that trigger had squeezed
And though you did me gruesome, I was surely relieved
I completed my mission, wasn’t ready to leave
But fulfilled my days, my Creator was pleased
I can’t stress how I love y’all
I don’t need to be in flesh just to hug y’all
The memories recollect just because y’all
Celebrate me with respect
The unity we protect is above all
And Sam, I’ll be watchin’ over you
Make sure my kids watch all my interviews
Make sure you live out our dreams we produced
Keep that genius in your brain on the move
And to my neighborhood, let the good prevail
Make sure them babies and the leaders outta jail
Look for salvation when troubles get real
’Cause you can’t help the world until you help yourself
And I can’t blame the hood the day that I was killed
Y’all had to see it, that’s the only way to feel
And though my physical won’t reap the benefits
The energy that carry on emits still
I want you

Kendrick Lamar (Excerpt from “The Heart Part 5”)

The day I chose humanity over religion
The family got closer, it was all forgiven
I said them F-bombs, I ain’t know any better
Mistakenly, I ain’t think that you’d know any different
See, I was taught words was nothing more than a sound
If ever they was pronounced without any intentions
The very second you challenged the shit I was kicking
Reminded me about a show I did out the city
That time I brung a fan on stage to rap
But disapproved the word that she couldn’t say with me
You said, “Kendrick, ain’t no room for contradiction
To truly understand love, switch position
’Faggot, faggot, faggot,’ we can say it together
But only if you let a white girl say ‘Nigga’”

Kendrick Lamar (Excerpt from “Auntie Diaries”)

Egotistic, zero-given fucks and to be specific
Need assistance with the way I was brought up
What’s the difference when your heart is made of stone
And your mind is made of gold
And your tongue is made of sword, but it may weaken your soul?
My niggas ain’t got no daddy, grow up overcompensatin’
Learn shit ’bout bein’ a man and disguise it as bein’ gangsta
I love my father for tellin’ me to take off the gloves
’Cause everything he didn’t want was everything I was
And to my partners that figured it out without a father
I salute you, may your blessings be neutral to your toddlers
It’s crucial, they can’t stop us if we see the mistakes
’Til then, let’s give the women a break, grown men with daddy issues.

Kendrick Lamar (Excerpt from “Father Time”)

Eight billion people on Earth, silent murderers
Non-profits, preachers and church, crooks and burglars
Hollywood corporate in school, teachin’ philosophies
You either gon’ be dead or in jail, killer psychology
Silent murderer, what’s your body count? Who your sponsorship?
Objectified so many bitches, I killed their confidence
The media’s the new religion, you killed the consciousness
Your jealousy is way too pretentious, you killed accomplishments
Niggas killed freedom of speech, everyone sensitive
If your opinion fuck ’round and leak, might as well send your will
The industry has killed the creators, I’ll be the first to say
To each exec’, “I’m saving your children”—We can’t negotiate
I caught a couple of bodies myself, slid my community
My last Christmas toy drive in Compton handed out eulogies
Not because the rags in the park had red gradient
But because the high blood pressure flooded the caterin’
So what’s the difference ’tween your life when hiding motives?
More fatalities and reality bring you closure
The noble person that goes to work and pray like they ’posed to?
Slaughter people too, your murder’s just a bit slower.

Kendrick Lamar (Excerpt from “Worldwide Steppers”)

The first time I fucked a white bitch
I was sixteen at the Palisades
Fumblin’ my grades, I traveled with the team
The apache life, Centennial was like
When Mrs. Baker screamed at Doughboy
Mixed that with Purple Rain
They interchanged the scenes
Happy just to be out the hood
With all the wealthy kids
Credit cards and family plans
She drove her daddy’s Benz
I found out that he was a sheriff
That was a win-win
Because he had locked up Uncle Perry
She paid her daddy’s sins
Next time I fucked a white bitch
Was out in Copenhagen
​good kid, m.A.A.d city tour
I flourished on them stages
Whitney asked did I have a problem
I said, “I might be racist”
Ancestors watchin’ me fuck was like retaliation

Kendrick Lamar (Excerpt from “Worldwide Steppers”)

I used to think I could do anything
with enough effort—throw a rope
at the night and lasso in the moon,
or jump from a tree
and beat my arms into wings
like an owl, its feathers nothing
more than decoration, nothing my naked
arms couldn’t match. I was an imaginative
child. An imbecile in some circles.
It is not nice to call someone names.
I was the name-caller. I said Little White
Sickle to the moon. I said Big Head Bird
to the owl. I said Mom, and I said Dad.
I thought if I shouted these names loud
enough, then someone would respond.
These days I have seen my best
efforts fail. All the love I’ve poured
into a person. Or them into me.
How I’ve failed to open myself
properly to receive their names.
Love. Love bird. I have been called
so many names. I have so many
identities I never meant to adopt.
In the dark, the owls hoot at each other
and I shout back: me, me, me.

Kien Lam

Bags of ice drip from the back of a small bike
in Vietnam. The exhaust pipe rumbles. The man
sweats. My tongue melts. We are lucky we are not tiny
starving polar bears slipping off the last refuge
of ice into the black asphalt. The open
ocean. Or I should say we are lucky
the coming flood is incremental.
We are lucky to share this moment—
him delivering the bags of ice
before they melt, and me having returned
to my parents’ birthplace, which is to me
an almost-home in that I am almost
melting. An old woman sells a child
a snack. Her mother hands her some cash.
The old woman doesn’t melt. The bike
doesn’t melt. We are lucky to be held
together by bodies which are so difficult
to melt. We are similar in our almost-melting,
just as the sounds of the café I am sitting in
almost melt into me the way a song’s name sits
on the tip of your tongue when you can’t
remember it. I will never fully know
the sounds because I am lucky to have left
the melting: my mother lucky
to have a family that didn’t need to sell
dried pieces of squid on the street,
which is a thing I almost-understand—
the old woman squatting in the street.
In Vietnam I am the piece of ice
that stays on the bike. I am the child
chewing on the dried squid. I am lucky
it is dead and cannot escape into the wet
air, where the Vietnamese people swim
and their voices distort just slightly—I can
almost understand them. I can almost
piece my tongue back together.
I can almost stop the melting.

Kien Lam

I unloaded my stomach
onto the pavement again,

a gut check to push my body
to its edges—inflate it

to the point just before it pops,
or as so often happens, just after.

I have learned so much
from my mistakes. Do not pet

a dog’s ass when it’s not looking,
or anyone’s ass for that matter.

If someone offers me a drink,
I’ve taken it and spilled it

into my mouth. Swallowed it
quickly. This is one way

to test how hollow you are.
Do not despair. Inside us

is enough space for even
the most grotesque-looking creatures.

The liver, the lover—

there are worse things
to spill than the stomach.

Kien Lam

When we die, the money we can’t keep
But we’ll probably spend it all
’cause the pain ain’t cheap.
Doctors say I’m the illest
’cause I’m suffering from realness.

Ye (excerpts from “No Church in the Wild” and “Niggas in Paris”)

A is for almost, arriving, my father’s death.
B is for bear, which he does and does not do.
C is for care and critics and leaving them to their caskets.
D is for damn, which your father does not give but must.
E, for empire—a thing to impale, kill, break
Breach. F is for farther along we’ll understand why
Fire greets us at every door and we’ve lost our way
In the sky. Now where, where should we turn?
G is for good, the shy speechless sound of fruit
Falling from its tree. Me, you, there in the woods
Watching the pines shatter shadow in the light
Wind. H is for horses in the high cotton,
The crack in their hooves carrying your grandfather
And your grandfather’s grandfather down the hill
Until two stomps on the barn floor orphans them
Again, dust, dust. I is for in, as in in the blood we bear
All sorts of madness but bear, bear we must.
J is for jaundiced, which you never were.
K is for keep. Keep your wilderness wild, your caves neat.
L is lift and lymph, the node they cut
From beneath your grandfather’s arm.
M is for misery, which turns and breaks in
Though I wish it would not. Leaf
Leaning on a pond. Blood on a sock.
N is for nature and nearly and how I’ve come
To love; nearly, nearly I come to you, my falcon
Hood pulled tight; my talons tucked; Lord,
Let me not touch. O is for out and the owl
You say sits on your nose. P is for please
As in “Please, son, don’t visit me”
And yet I visited and did not please, and he would not
Touch your leaf, afraid his rot would
Make the petals fall. A lovely love—
No, not at all. Q is for quince, its yellow-breasted
Bell knocking against my father’s deathbed
Window, the light, the light too on his dying
Bed, what you opened your mouth to and tried
To swallow. R is for road where we lay,
Sometimes, because we wish not to exist
And wish and wish and wish. And must.
S is for…

Roger Reeves