Rusted Ghosts - Soul Khan, Soul Khan feat. Arthur Lewis

I remember my mother pleading

telling me that this meeting with a needle wasn’t needed

it would leave me «a disease

if they didn’t just sterilize it

the hiv or the hepatitis»

your generation is biased

you’ll see it when it’s completed

she’s saying she didn’t have to

i’m saying it’s just a tattoo

on my skin, but she made the kid that the skin’s attached to

«but what if they won’t have you in a jewish grave?»

well you can take them foolish ways and bury me beneath a buddha statue

i was surprised to find some friends were opposed

«like what about when you get wrinkled into stretches and folds?»

but if i never take a step i could regret when i’m old

then my regrets’ll be the only thing that i’ll ever hold

so i slid in the chair, palms clutching the arms of it

my whole body was probably limp as a sock puppet

used to fear the pain, now it’s one of my favorite parts of it

'cause there ain’t nothing more beautiful than the scar from it

hook:

some hear the voices

inside of their head

but i had mine

inscribed in my flesh

they realign me when i am depressed

at least i know what they’ll read when i’m dead

open and close,

let it flow through your nose,

or your little lungs might forget how to breathe

those rusted ghosts

made a home on your shoulders

and you can trust that they’ll never leave

«and the just man rages

in the wilds where lions roam»

the first tat on my right rib, from the flyest poem

of william blake, when i was still afraid i’d die alone

and i was getting wasted every day like styrofoam

left arm’s john henry, hammer in hand

a tribute to the indisputable impact of a man

and that the united states is a graveyard of slaves

but only some of us are eating off the fat of the land

my right arm’s the grasshopper

from the fable of aesop

that sang songs while the ants labored and saved stock

of food for the winter, too cool to consider

he steadily succumbed to starvation as they watched

that colony of ants was responsible, right?

but they ain’t ever sang a motherfucking song in their life

and those are just a couple of the tats that i got

I’ll holler at you when I"m back from the shop

hook