Penned n Pennsylvania

Why me? Why this place? Why can't I be from somewhere that's great?
I am a Pennsylvania boy; what does that really mean?
Middleswarth chips, a river that's green
A place where things aren't always what they seem

Gold statue on the cap of the capitol
Overlooking poverty in each direction.

Pennsylvania, where pistols put in pants for protection.
Ball shorts under my jeans not on my way to the court.
If I lift this pistol from my waist
So much weight in the decisions we make
So much bitterness in the bites we take
So much lost in the rights they take

Laws seem to flow in the direction of the currency around here
Lobbyists invisibly stirring the boat around here
Commonwealth cuff us
Seems black is the selection
For State Corrections

Valleys overwhelmed by shadows of death
A river that flows through whatever's left

Hershey chocolate scents the air, farm animals everywhere
Racism is still here! Some blatant, some on Where's Waldo
The new generations and I want to see it all go, though

I wish I could represent every black male in between the PA state lines
I wish I could pen every black male's pain in between these PA paper lines
I wish I could ball all of our pain up in that letter

I wish I could wash away all the pain by dropping that letter in the river
That green river that represents greed and death because it's been tainted

I wish we could just drain it but if we did
We would see the floor and how past blood stained it
The greenest springs, the whitest winters
The brownest falls, the sunniest summers

Scribbling what I see, writing with all this hunger
I am from the Pennsylvania jungle

Where there is darkness in the valley
In between the sun's rays and sounds of automatic sprays and Halloween days

Sitting in the darkness of the Pennsylvania valley
It's a wonder I still feel sensation
Penned in Pennsylvania sun facing... Penned in Pennsylvania!