Hope you enjoy it. It’s mine, so if you want to use it, you sure as heck better talk to me about it.
My Soul is a Witness
My soul is a witness
The biographer
The cartographer
Mapping out
The slings and arrows
Of a race’s outrageous misfortune
Of tenacious survivors
(that’s deep) My soul is a witness
To the turmoil
Sweating fear
Lingering near When the blue lightsShine in my rearview mirror My soul is a witness
To the crime and the grime
People just trying to survive
Living one moment at a time To the stinging tearsOf mothers waiting in rooms For boys just out of the womb
Trying to be men
Rooms with cold eyes
And colder hearts
Men talking down to them
Because they wear a badge
And carry a stick
My soul is a witness
To the irony of striving just to stay in one place
‘Cause we don’t want it gettin’ any worse. My soul is a witness To the love and the longingThe joy of belonging
To this tribe of many nationsAll my relationsMaking love In chocolate brown
In sepia, mahogany
High yella, caramel
Ebony, redbone
Light bright-And sometimes white‘cause my soul can witness
In Technicolor
And black and white
My soul is a witness
To profilin’
Devastatin’ Dozens playin’ laughter
And the ease of just being
‘Cause sometimes that’s all we have
When your soul is a witness
To a violent history
To a shattered past
When your soul is a witness
to misunderstandings written in your ancestors’ blood
Let my soul witness something new
Let my soul witness hope