Figueroa

When the black and whites arrive

I am lifeless on the floor

Crumpled dollars in my hand

In my hand, in my hand

The lady in the fishing vest

Has dropped the gun

Who wears a fishing vest

When they're working at a liquor store?

I float up to the corner

Just above the ice cream

And the frozen food

I perch beside the surveillance camera

Only days after the trial

You could feel the tension rise

In the street and in the rhythm

Of despair, of despair

It was war after a while

In each neighbor's tired eyes

There was nothing to persuade them

To stand down, to stand down

I float higher and higher

Friendly with the clouds

That cover Southland

I watch the tender skyline dancing

Oh, the terror

On the long night

On the long fight

Blood, glass, burnt hair

These angry armies quick advancing

In position

On the rooftops, in the culverts

Stores are sacked while no one's there

Now two kinds of light from fires and fixtures

They fill the sky

It was never so bright when I was young

I was too young to die

On TV sets, in houses effortlessly done

In fancy colors

All the righteous, all the newsmen

Speak of end times

Why should they give a fuck

Some angry little black girl took a bullet?

Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy

On the ones who've done the crimes

Now two kinds of light from fires and fixtures

They fill the sky

It was never so bright when I was young

I was too young to die

If I float even higher

Pattern and procession are uncovered

Flood and fire, flood and earthquake

Keep folks unmoored

And the occasional celebrity car chase

Woo, woo, woo, woo!

Just to keep God, just to keep God

From getting bored, from getting bored

Now two kinds of light from fires and fixtures

They fill the sky

It was never so bright when I was young

I was too young to die

When my Grandma was a young woman

East St. Louis

She thought the town was no good to us

She took a Greyhound

Just as far as it could take her

Felt her maker in the waves

You know, how God moves through us

I was six years old when we followed

My mother was twenty two

The light was magic

The light was true

She thought we'd moved

Beyond a sharecropper's debt

But we were just a pawn

In the accuser's bet

Nobody reads from the Book of Job

At the church where me and my grandma go

Nobody sees the trouble, I know

But I know that trouble's gonna find me

Three years later on the Thanksgiving

The light turned bitter

My grandmother didn't know what hit her

We got a chill from the cold white sun

Momma found herself staring

At the barrel of a gun

That weren't enough, my uncle died too

Shot through the chest back in East St. Louis

So one fine day my grandma lost two

Took me in her arms and said, it's just me and you

Nobody reads from the Book of Job

At the church where me and my grandma go

Nobody sees the trouble, I know

But I know that trouble's gonna find me

Nobody reads from the Book of Job

At the church where me and my grandma go

Nobody sees the trouble, I know

But I know that trouble's gonna find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

It will find me

So when I say that my untimely death

Was something certain

What I mean is that these tragedies

Are a kind of family tradition

So when I walk into the liquor store that morning

Bright and angry

In a daydream of a boyfriend

I was fifteen

Pick up a bottle of orange juice

And put it into my backpack

Head toward the counter with dollar bills

And she accuse me of stealing that

She pull my sweater

And so I hit her

Put down the bottle

Don't want no trouble

Now two kinds of light from fires and fixtures

They fill the sky

It was never so bright when I was young

I was too young to die

Now two kinds of light from fires and fixtures

They fill the sky

It was never so bright when I was young

I was too young to die

I suppose it's no surprise

To find myself about to die

But how long that silver moment

From the bullet to the floor

That right there was a lifetime

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