The Yawning Gap Between What's Right and What's Affordable
Title of my mix tape!
There’s a 35-year-old kid with half his throat missing
Carved out yesterday after coughing up blood
That tasted like the Camp Echo burn pit
He’s rushing out the emergency door of the emergency wing
With his hand on the bandage on his neck
Ducks into Allen Metro stop and hops on Outbound
AMA and on the way to the VA hospital
Gets dropped at University and doubles up the stairs
His cell phone just ran out of juice but the last text he’ll remember for life:
“911 i think it’s happening”
He knows his sister’s already there he’ll just have them page her like last time
When he shows his ID at the desk the guard takes a minute
He pulls off his gloves and scarf, sweating from the run across campus
Guard says he’s gotta sit down on a bench in this back room
and don’t move
Turns out he’s got a warrant out
Aggravated Unlicensed Operation
Still breakin’ his balls and he didn’t even drive here
Now he’s talking to federal officers about his dad
Who just died from pulmonary failure 80 yards down the hall
At the end of his own private chemical hell that started as
latrine duty in a Thai forest in the spring of 1964
The feds want to know where he’s been and why he seems so agitated
They smell the distinct aroma of the marijuana plant, as they say
They’re not going to hold him anyway, so once they’ve gone through his pockets
He’ll walk home to catch up with the family later
Appearance ticket in hand
Federal paper—harder to wash off than a state charge
Ain’t gonna help him out in family court
Ain’t gonna help him out with his kids
Ain’t gonna change that his dad’s probably dead
And his sister didn’t even know he showed up
That’s a wrap on the job because he’s already two days late
He’s got a long walk to burn a torch
To pretend like he doesn’t know what’s coming
First let’s build highways around the major cities
Walls around the highways
Houses behind the walls
Electrify the valleys
Save the children and the whales
Subsidize a peacetime generation from cradle to reverse mortgage
Paid for by the wealthy and weak alike
There’s nowhere to go but down so let’s cut the legs out from under us
Rolling furloughs and a steak knife in the coat pocket
No more free lunch and crash the car for the insurance money
‘Til our toes are on the street line and our head’s at the water line
Our throats are full of acid and we’re running out of breath
A bare cupboard and Mother’s dog’s bones boiling overnight on the stove
To make stock to make rice to make something out of nothing