Conjure Song

all those nights we blew

smoked to a stupor

below the ashen shells

of someone else’s dream

& you, Ray, my accomplice, tight-lipped bulldog

of a brother, help me conjure the first

track we recorded—remember that?

Remember that, bruh.

How I finished our chorus:

I will never fade away—

Do not burden yourself

but lend me some strength

& a rucksack for my journey

lend me your lighter words

& freestyles that I might dazzle

a few local governors & warriors

O brothers of my youth

I am chained & imperfect

I am savage & made of redwater

I speak of nation when I really mean

light & the physics of loneliness

the sweet tinge of blood in my mouth

as I spit the bars of another:

don’t tell me that you knew it would be like this

all along / I know the truth is you won’t love me

until I’m gone / and even then the thing

that comes after is moving on—

‘Cause, my brothers, I am so damn

charged & at a hustle to escape

the bitter regions of my body

& its nation-state of a dumb heart

Show me the renegade warbler

for I sing of hustlers & saints