How To Make It Through Hysteria

(album: A Dream Deferred - 2012)

Growing up, project struck, looking for luck, dreaming, me and
Couplets I was cupping up to the ceiling, seen it
Jumped in and was looking up to believe it
Lived it, went and penned it and left the rest to the speakers
Wrote it the way I know it, you heard it, you saw me show it
Outlining the obvi' and intricating below it
Dollar signs in the lobby and finger painting the motive
Any side that's beside me is giving way to the notice
Dare you to look away from it, counting it is weighing it
And the weight of the winners will build 'em to build a gate for it
Protect it or neglect it, skully over the face with it
The outcome surrounds them and everything they praying with
Dents in the carpet, the honor amongst saving it
Picturing tomorrow is prolly gonn' make today the end
Beat tapes blur out the blue, and all the chase in them
Lights out the window, the awakening

I'm feeling like I made it though
And if I made it yo
Then making it is everywhere that they ain't say to go
I'm making it where all of this is for the taking yo
Cause making it is everything that they been waiting fo'
I show 'em how to make it through hysteria
Make it through hysteria
Make it through hysteria
Made it through
Show 'em how

Know the sound, know the score well enough to quote it now
Used to what they used to, see them pointing the composer out
Suitor of the suitors, double breasted, money folded down
Rooted where the root is, found an exit they can go around
Sped you up to slow you down, fuck the curiosity
1, 000 thread count but I was cut from where the bottom be
Powder spread 'round like they was dumping out their lottery
Freshened up the linen like embellishing an image
See it's sorta like the scene where Dukie get out the car
And Prezbo is watching a dream die from afar
And testers are getting thrown over on Popular Grove
And the rest of what you know is where the end of it starts
You hear the engine is gone, behind you is what it was
Hearing tends to be wrong but reminds you of what it does
Hearing it through the walls, oblige and get your run
And make sure to rewind it when you're done

I'm feeling like I made it though
And if I made it yo
Then making it is everywhere that they ain't say to go
I'm making it where all of this is for the taking yo
Cause making it is everything that they been waiting fo'
I show 'em how to make it through hysteria
Make it through hysteria
Make it through hysteria
Made it through
Show 'em how

Word to the hysteria that we tryna say we made it thru, and word to bringing everyone with us to say "shit I made it too", whatever happens from here on out, I made it when they said I wouldn't make it I made it and I made it true, no hand outs used because none were ever given, I mean I can't say I wouldn't have accepted if a hand was ever risen, but none were so, why consider, when they didn't, they didn't consider my city or my block or my curb or my crib the way I did, and I didn't do any of this just to say I lived, I did it to say I'm in, in for whatever it might've been or it might be, or whatever's likely to push thru, not a hero just a good dude, moms and pops love me like cooked food and the front door was wide enough for me to do more than just look thru, so hey, why not at least take a stare, take it a step further and take it there, I mean really take it there and see what all the fuss is being made about and, admire the ones before us who made it out, getting autographs and picturing all of that as a blueprint for us and wishing for all of that, uh, see when I said I wrote on the back of light bills I really meant that, and whether you did or didn't get that, it is what it is, I mean it is what it is for that dream, and that dream is so vivid it don't even look like one, or so it seems, seems to us that whatever you leave for us is what it'll be for us, but fuck that because if that don't be enough then what does that mean for us?, confliction and contemplation and addiction and that itching and itching for what you missing and you inching to see what they taking or see what they paying, or see both sides and see why the song's been playing the way it's been playing and why it won't stop, couldn't stop it if you tried to, or better yet if you pretended you wasn't listening when really you knew every word in every sentence and every metronome in that rhythm, every hi hat and 808 you was given, the bass you know as well as the mirror you in front of, and well, either do it or don't but either or they can't judge us, so yea I wrote and I wrote because no one else spoke, no judge, no jury, just purely how it goes, and from the go I was who I am, the story's been one in the same just the way that you turn that page may have changed, long time coming since Chris or Shawn or Nasir or Corey or Brad first started to go, figured I'd do my part and draw up a path, and let it unfold, unfold like kites with picture requests and, homecoming dates and liquor requests and, shit, I stand tall for all of it if this is what's left, buying bottles last minute cause see I'll never forget the date but I might forget the request, see my life's loaded at the moment and there's so many bottles to be bought that, I kinda get lost, but still here, and feeling like I made it though...