All You Care About is Music (Song for K) – Manuel Marrero

July 29, 2019

(bass drop)

I’m the answer to a question no one asked,

bulletproof, motor mouth, facial tic in your ask.

jackpot in your get, wrote a reckoning for subsidies, 

paychecks disbursed before the litany was broached,

I speak a mile a minute cure the ennui split the medical bills by inches 

through your thick skull, there there, death by a thousand cuts,

I put the future on hold for loving you enough, kept my thumb on your pulse,

legs on your scales, tipped the nightlamp, eavesdropped on grunts,

tuck the family portrait and album away

I’m solo today,

a karmic comeuppance, you don’t want it badly enough

I love

when a bitch turn a key and I lock up, let down and hanging around

I’m fed up 

with these lost experiences, drink made me bitter, pills made me the man I am today,

a collateral concatenator 

a serial instigator with Promethean patience,

Joyce gave me ideas 

it’s all dark and it’s all luck

self abasement seppuku 

Under cloak of incoherence, I am the Snowden of trauma-addled psyches,

grit, mettle, come undone

an inborn lethargy

clipped ciphers, letterist 

palimpsestic incestuous 

hypergraphics I chipped a chunk off my crushing loneliness,

a sickness unto self,

years you don’t have to micromanage your life is radio silent write a piece a ring to kiss 

a mentor to miss, I’m special ‘cos I’m alone, I speak the common tongue against Babel,

I’ve been used up I’ve been misunderstood and I’d do it again

for Janus-faced cowards 

I ignited the spark, cracked ‘em open and they gutted me,

I didn’t finish, it finished me 

claiming your shame, I’m a dismal truth a harsh 80s reality, skeletons tumble out the closet a secret they confide in me, compelling apparatus 

I’m shambling, I wrote the spell that broke the ages, 

While you maintained appearances, I merely survived

I ain’t holding you back I’m only mildly acquainted 

with your self-image 

people feeling all type of ways about me without talking to me

I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from this year if I’m so lucky why death got me running

why is it hounding me

shaking with fear

woozy trembling with awe

eroding my sense of security

so my presence is murder, mood cyclical,

hypothetical rude boy I’m cynical

they called me a danger

bid me to betray myself

lock eyes, and take a decibel between us, 

make your mom sing, I’ll put a difference between us,

you minus me is like a beesting on your lips,

differentially devastating all the acrimony that exists,

arrested by the red lights on 5th, a natural communist

I’m arrogant it’s obvious, it’s a race war out there,

the years feel unbearably light when you’re embarrassed by every little thing that you do,

total war drove me to drugs so I masturbate to stay sex positive or

maybe just anonymous, I don’t like the attention send it back I’m naked as days caught on tape, hoarding weed to feel safe in my own home, pouring whiskey on your ulcers. 

We got heat emergencies and the world on a piano wire, 

the beautiful are homeless,

There’s a universal neurosis we’re calling repression,

limelight seared into the id.

If you’re not touched you’re terrified of sentience

affinities we are connected by simply extraordinary measures and circumstances

shrug it off

you barking up the wrong tree of denial 

be wary that it don’t backfire,

origami pores

glamorati in overalls,

I didn’t leave you dummy,

true lies transpired autonomous body talent you will find it in a mist of eyes

so bright they make you look insane. I am the spoils of war.

came for clarity and closure on behalf of divine truth 

couldn’t hack it so I wrote you by hook or by crook

faceless allies surrounding me it’s kind of outstanding how much they wanted me

get ready for pain ‘cos I ain’t going away 

honestly my strength scares me 

I ain’t been allowed weakness in so long I’m an emissary of something inhumane and repulsive,

oblique and convulsively I stagger drunk along the masquerades my whole country’s a tragedy that’s charity a farce,

when the whole moment’s lost it won’t feel like winning 

I’m a cygnet floating up to the surface drowned

sleep in clean sheets a glint of perversion by dint of subversion

a toast to spontaneity

lean into me

emotional hangover

the formula was gold,

the bottom fell out

I’m halfway in between things getting by, a pulled string away from parachuting away

streetwalkers may I approach? 

in furtherance of outcomes, you lost me I’m too sad on here, state your name, who’s that?

This is reaping what you sow

Trust a tricky thing though,

Winner take all no comment while you rendered a verdict,

foisted a strawman,

irreplaceable

implacable

psychotic deluded disturbed

drug crossed obsession there I go again with things of that nature

how eerie the devil brought us together a perfect storm of erasure

I did it without nomenclatures 

I’m looking through you at all the lines you crossed 

lord only knows how much you fucked this up

and if I have another drink it’s gonna fuck me up again

from one day to the next you tried you did your best you said 

what you thought was meant but when shit got real you fled with your dick tucked between your legs.

your lack of conviction left her waiting on you, initials sewn into the lining of her coat,

colder than the brass ring you still wear,

so don’t talk to me about mourning, don’t tell me about the time you found her unconscious barred out with reality flickering, the time you came home horny and snuck into the shower with her, don’t you ever mention the time I came correct with you in spite of what it cost me, in spite of what you didn’t earn, abusing your power wielded in bad faith, keeping the lie alive to save face.

and if I had some sense I’d blame it all on you and call it fate,

and if I had a weakness, no one could stop me from losing faith.