Sage Francis - Li(f)e I Was Zero

Lyrics

If it wasn't for the bass
I wouldn't need these hearing aids.
If it wasn't for mistakes
I probably wouldn't be here today.

10 years ago I was 22.
20 years ago I was 12.
30 years ago I was 2.
When I came out my momma I was zero.

In the before life...I was undead.
I was home schooled. There were no rules.
But I gave it all up just for the chance to go public.
A celestial scarecrow dancing with the puppets
A tug in my gut. I'm carrying the world in my stomach.
I'm a surrogate motherfucker, the girls love it.
Birth the suffix. Cut the visible string.
Control is much more than a physical thing.

I was born into it and before I knew it
I saw the students of poor getting hauled off to war.
It's the law of Judas in the land of king's tax.
Partake in the Eucharist and then demand your kick backs.
Spiritual wrist slap, please pass the sacrament
and ask if big, bad, black Jesus was African.
They're selling a click track but they call it a soul clap.
It's all in how you package it. The power of a magic trick.
Immaculate concepts are lost in the land of the cross.
I'm standing off with a man of the cloth.
He knows the ins and outs. All I want is the outs.
He's selling real estate for some place in the clouds, but...
I'm not investing in intellectual property.
I'm inventing gender bending technology.
'Cause maybe everybody needs to just become a sexual oddity
Leaving birth to the test tubes and death to the lottery.
There's no one stopping me, I gotta be self-regulating.
Wealth is escalating but my poverty was entertaining.
Now I'm debating the value of a caste system,
Cash back rewards and wars funded by my taxed income.
If I'm a part of the problem then pardon me.
There's always been a difference between what I am and what I wanna be.
It's either Jihadist freak or Jesus scenester.
I heard God is coming...and she's a screamer.
I couldn't understand what she was telling me.
Why everybody thinks they're their own worst enemy.
I followed the manual. I swallowed the skeleton key.
And it unlocked the hell in me.

so this is my gift to God.
Ribbon on my dick, like a tourniquet. Syphilis.
This is my gift to God.
I'm jumping out the cake. Naked with a shank.
This is my gift to God.
Unwrap the package. Confetti made of maggots.
this...is my...gift. Ugh, you call that talent?
Here's your image back. You can have it.

10 years ago I was 22.
20 years ago I was 12.
30 years ago I was 2.
When I came out my momma I was zero.