Verbal Sedatives

A jungle of concrete grows throughout the thickest parts of the city, where tenants of hip hop find eviction notices attached to their pumas. The rent money is due and we only have drumbeats to sell. The record stops, screeching against the blacktop where a dancer drops to the floor. His black band is strapped around his forearm, cutting the circulation to his wax arteries, as spray paint drips from his wrists, coating the concrete surface. The verbal sedatives spill out the sides of his mouth and fall face-first onto a canvas of ink. Beside him, a poetic flow of footsteps crackle like a strand of hair caught in the wax's needle. Track marks of track shoes swipe across the floor as ciphers echo revolutionary chants of supply and demand, "And Yes Yes Y'all, And Ya Don't Stop!" This heroin of culture is too good to resist. But its scars surface as it seems the beat box martyrs are losing their faith. We found kamikaze pilots bombing windmills on the ground and wrapped their bodies in linoleum mats, so their ascension into heaven would be thwarted and channeled toward a more convenient place. Lyricists laugh at the idea and try to resist. 536 angle changes in a three-minute song. Like gas tanks on Empty- V necks of rock stars. Big houses and fast cars. They're working their way out of freedom and into change. Like the coins in your pockets, picked with blind direction. They're buying their way out of freedom and into chains. Gold and Platinum chains. Strangling their necks. It's an attack on the subconscious. A battle verse and a top rock brings their caution flares into full swing. An elbow to the stomach; An elbow to the hip; An elbow to the knee; Freeze.