I'm sitting here, the night you left me
I've been holding on to hope
to a hope of us, maybe together
a night of passion came and went
and I waited for a sign from you....
something...anything at all
and got a empty room filled with nothing
I don't know what to do
My mind is filled with ifs and whats
and whose going to take my place
a bed, one night, its over now
but never will escape my grasp.

How can we live in a world that hates and discriminates, that stings and burns while children cry and scream for their momma's to come clean and their dads to keep of the streets, all the while knowing they'll never--he'll never--she'll never--get out of the circle of hurt that forever will surround them?

How can we live in a world were guns become best friends and best friends become worst enemies, where money is thicker than blood, and blood runs freely on the cold, dark, empty allys---only sometimes, it's not in allys, it's right in sight, so Latasha's two year old can see the hate that shines brighter than love and that feeling of 'safe' is no longer 'safe' but 'miserable'?

How can we live in a world where children become lovers--for a price? Where entertainers get paid while heroes get slain by m-16's in foreign lands and by haters in the good 'ol USA...How can we live in a world where bombs and would-be bombs go off and killers--or would be killers get off because they didn't kill. This time. Where a mom can work three jobs to feed her three children only to come home at three in the morning to see three thin, slim, slender bodies?

How can we live in a world where sex is a sport, where 'love' in now the same as 'like', or 'appealing, or even 'compatible'? Where after hundreds of years, skin color still matters, and one person shouldn't be, but is, better than the other because "i like cream in my coffee".

Where Hip Hop is all about fucking and hoes, and fucking hoes, and dropping it like it's hot, and wishing your girlfriend was hot like me? Where I'm not black because pop, hip hop, and country rock my boat? I thought an oreo was a cookie...and a cookie was a babe...and a babe was a child... and that child is me?

How can I live in this world?

I don't know why

I don't know when

but know when it comes

it'll come with power

and devour

while we cower

and shake.

I don't know why.

I don't know when.

but when "when" becomes the then of now,

I'll love it again and again.

This game we play, you and I
I didn't know the rules
I smell your smell and think of you
I am such a fool

I don't know what you want from me
and you won't tell me either
I give and give till givings gone,
I am such a fool

Why do I let myself get sucked in
listen to tale after tale
or never hear a word from you
that's what's worst than hell

Akwardness in talking to you
has become the norm
I know my shell is showing through
and I'm losing this game for two

Please don't you take a look at me
for you'll see all these scars
that you've so neatly planted on me
yet kept me asking for more

I can't play this game anymore
It's taken its toll on me
A quarter for a ride's all you ask
but I want the whole damn pie