I'm trapped in corners bustin shots at Time-Warner

I'm America's nightmare
young black and just dont give a fuq
I just want to get high and live it up
so fuck a 9-to-5
and why you tryin to slave us
with minimum wages
slammin my n!ggas up in cages
-Onyx, "All We Got Iz Us"

Borne of a banal necessity. Steeped in surreal history. Conscious of the cause du jour. We fight with inner and outer demons throuhgout our days on the regular, but only find times to address them when we least expect it. I may have written Lying Eyes back in 1998 or so, but I came across it and it resonated with me. It's a bit choppy, misspelled, illeterate (lol), rushed, fragmented, and disconcerting; but that's the emotion with which I wrote it at the time. like those southside boys said, living life on the edge of dangerous, where you living, never giving a shT, cuz we living in it [shT]. Now if only I could fine that demo tape I made...then all those prior creative juices should start flowing freely once again, right?

Lying Eyes

Street fiends make cream
While cash rules everyone
With iced jewels
And a disdain for school
Peep those freshly-cut fades and Air J's
With the mad fat bubble gooses

The noose is loosened
Then pulled tighter
The fire gets brighter

Eyes turn glassy and stark
Like chalky coal from lighter fluid
A river must have run through it
And up in your ass
So think fast
Catching whiplash
Mind states shift

Mental quips and split spliffs
Leaves wrinkled weed in the midst
Burning trees like anti-environmentalists
The coke-crack epidemic is sytemic
Ain't no accident
Just a migraine headache
Boring a hole through skulls
While over life we mull

And wonder in passive voices
Making choices
Like to smoke or to puff the lah
Or go raw
Because many get left moist
With wood-grain stains
And red dots from blood unclotted
In the clutches of predators gone AWOL
Seizing shrunken balls
Off of project walls
In hotel halls
And corrupt corridors

Linking schizophrenics to anorexics
It ain't only the mentally dyslexic
That be seeing life backwards

Progressively slumping
Lower into slums
Claiming to be dumb
But I know that you're smarter, son
You're just not thinking harder
Or hard enough

But I will not allow you to be a tough guy
And look me in my eye
And lie
And disavow the beat of the drum
And the thump of one's
Own heart

When will you start
to open your eyes
And realize
Your demise
Has already begun