All Black Men Need Therapy ft. Lem "Saint" Gonsalves, Christopher Michael, Cordney "MAC Woods" McClain, Tarishi M.I.D.N.I.G.H.T. Shuler & Tré G. Lyrics

Sometimes, I feel

Which is a miracle to say out loud, because men ain't supposed to have feelings

Except anger

When I'm sad, I'm angry

When I'm scared, I'm angry

When I'm tired, I'm so tired that it makes me angry

When I'm happy, I don't know how to enjoy it, and that makes me angry

I wanna talk about why I'm so angry, but that makes me angry

Now I'm stuck between anger and responsibility

But I gotta do what I gotta do,

No time to pout, I got mouths to feed,

So I compartmentalize and then my mental lies trying to convince me I'm okay

So us men tell lies to convince you of the same

Yeah, I dabble in wordplay while the world plays with my emotions

Hoping a little poetic therapy can keep me from needing a therapist

I hide hurt in haiku

"All little children

have imaginary friends

I called mine daddy"

There's more syllables in haiku than times I've talked to my father

I'm a damn good father, but a better one to my daughter, than I am my sons

Do you know how hard it was to admit that?

I'm broken, and black but hell bent on being better and building bridges to bring black men back to their senses

I hit my homies, and hope they'd be willing to share a piece of their story

There's so much glory, at the end of our pain, it's insane

and we won't need a therapist for that

We won't always be broken, but we'll always be black

Sometimes, I feel more broken than black,

Feel fractured, feel fractioned, feel three fifths

Feel as if my destiny is compromised because my skin is too melanated

My smile, appears to have been chastised

Been beaten, no wonder it's crooked,

The burdens I carry, have caused my hands to be callous

Which must be why I create friction, with everything I touch,

I want to heal, I want to be whole

I want to live in a world where fear is obsolete

Where my blackness is not a crime

My goal is to bring my first child into this world

That is shown love long before they realize what hate even is

And I pray, that they never have to feel, more broken than black

Sometimes, I feel more broken than black,

Like depression is the punctuation

Pain is the whole point of my pigment

On a boat called agony anchored at my shores on a lake full of terror and hurt

Dammed up behind the windows of my soul

No figment in my imagination

I want to be whole

Black bodies be the special effect in every stream

I dream of scenes where my image is seen as safe

Still suffering under waves of government-backed extermination

Whole towns of me not resting in peace under white man-made lakes across the United States

I, nurse, cry, as I send black queer boy off with Po-Po

Cuffed cause he has the bad luck to be suicidal

We niggas, we blacks, we men of the African diaspora

Got the world title on broken promises, broken hearts, broken families, broken communities,

But now, I am the father, I didn't have, the grandfather I never met

And the only broken my children know is the generations of soul ties and curses

I've been seeing a, dissectologist here lately

His findings found that I lack certain spatial reasoning

In that, I kept forcing to fit pieces into places that didn't belong

I'm accustomed to scar tissue, sounds like I'm bragging about being damaged goods

Being born black is assembly required, instructions not included,

Black I then broken, sometimes, more feel, nah, nah, nah, take this off, that goes here, put this piece back

Oh, sometimes, I feel more broken, than black

Never taught how to share, can't build, play well or let go of pain

So we claim blocks, lay bricks, and stack bodies, like it's a game

Eeny, meeny, miny, no place or safe space, we're it, right off the porch

Dodge bullets with no name

I held Chris, until the cops came, while his blood, was soaking me

A decade later, those same bloody clothes, are under my bed, for keepsakes,

The Anansi spider, the outside, needed the inside to come together out the blue

It took a whole lot of work to end up, so terribly unfinished, ugly, and yet, so beautiful

I know what it's like looking up to your pops that's a rolling stone

Me looking like him was a thundering boulder that destroyed my habitat

Now, I reside in a broken home

Surrounded by broken glass, surrounded by young peers, that speak with a broken tongue

That followed the scent of gunpowder from broken rose petals made of metal

That grows out of the broken concrete blowing the kiss of death

Everything I'm left with is broken

No wonder I feel inadequate

Sometimes, I feel more broken than black

While everyone is counting on me to live up to their expectations

I'm still trying to solve the equation to Lauryn Hill's x-facto

What's the missing variable that'll make me feel significantly whole

Maybe X equals 143

What causes heterosexual men to say pause, as they speak affectionately about their male best friend or male next of kin

It's hard to love properly when you have a heart that's broken

All black men need love

All black men need therapy

The remedy, to unpack all of our trauma

The glue, that'll mend all the broken pieces back together, to make a better you,

Sometimes, I feel more broken than black

More sunken in sadness, anchored in anger

I harness this hardened heart and hardship surrounded by darkness

Despite the white faces of tasteless racists

This is basic training for most black men

Whose hymns sound like summer nights south street freestyle cyphers

Where we spit riffs to make sense of the madness that grabs us from the shadows

You want to understand the psyche of guys like me?

You need to see it generationally

We went from continental displacement to enslavement on plantations, to creating revolutions in our basements

To leading organizations in boardrooms, CEOs of corporations and presidential positions

Listen, that's the type of power, and manifestation, God gives to Gods,

A tenacity so nasty death has to ask me politely if I'm ready to leave

So, best believe, if Imma be here, then Imma thrive

I know black don't crack, but every once in a while I do crack a smile

Cause in every black man is a king and a kid

I know we all tryna survive, my nigga but do me a favor, don't forget to live,

Bro, you keep hitting me about this therapy shit, nigga, fuck that, talk to who, for what?

Shit, when I was raised, they told me feelings in females, start with the same two alphabets

You supposed to do the first not the latter

I better not catch you feeling with nothing other than your fingertips

I had to be tough, seniors would sniff me to make sure I still smelled like real leather

They said these new bucks be soft

I've been hoarding hurt since He-Man underwear

Tears were only tolerated at funerals during the pass and review

They gave us a pass when somebody passed other than that,

Shit damp eyes and downpours, caused a bad weather report

You must have rainbows in your forecast

I'm 40 now, you know what I'm changing for

I've been this way since the umbilical and I ain't never ran into no major issue

I mean, the two divorces, of course, they both said, they were tired of window shopping for feelings, they couldn't afford to wait around for

But that's about it

And Oh, the kids, I try to coach them through but they claim I'm too unapproachable, damn

I always wonder why I felt more broken than black,

Like walking on dark clouds shaky foundation

The darkest of darkness, told I can't have depression

Cause black men have nothing to decompress from

No matter how much dirt they push on me, I stay dripped

But don't let my tears drip on me,

Wear monetary gain as success

Continue to succeed, regardless of how everyone around me sucks the seeds out of me

Tell me that I look great

Tell me that good black don't crack but they never look below the surface

Too busy surfacing the contours of my face

Facing my own reflections, reflecting on why I feel more failure than father

More punk than protector, more ridiculous than revolutionary

Poetry don't always fix anxiety

Don't tell me insecurities don't write fear across your soul like hallelujah, Amen

A man ain't supposed to hold the weight of the world on his back,

No matter how black you are even honest has a breaking point get the point

Still a man, still strong in a world that doesn't love me back

Don't ask me why I feel more broken than black

There are days when I feel more broken than black,

But I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell my kids that

It's the many pieces of me that make me whole to them

Which is probably why they make me feel so complete

See, I've watched them marvel at my broken

So how do I tell them that this cape is yet to ever defy gravity

That every day I scale the scariest skyscrapers with my fear strapped right to my back

And the moment they look away, I jump, and I pray

I mean I am a black man

God forbid it's one of those rare days I can't fly, can't catch my rhythm

Yo, imagine the days this Daddy cape doesn't do its job and I'm left to find the grace in gravity

Accompanied only by the acapella of my heartbeat and having to learn how to dance in the descent

Grateful that repent isn't on the top of my to-do list

And as I fall back, I revisit the previous levels

Back to the days before they birthed my cape and the staircase was my only way up

But maybe it's the way I recovered from the bumps and bruises that has my children believing that

I'm not human

The way I fall up every time I jump for them, head first, only to land on my feet again and again

Never falling short or back, imagine your kids truly believing you can fly

and all because you know you won't always be broken, but you'll always be black

Sometimes I feel more broken than black

A shattered chandelier after dark

An unkept promise in an unkempt palace

A thousand dollar suit on sale at men's warehouse

A worn out warehouse

Where else to find spare parts to build your war house

I feel more broken in my own house,

Sometimes I the crack in my mirror

Sometimes the crack is my horror

Sometimes I feel like sorrow more bereaved than beloved

A tumultuous tomorrow

A dirty pile waiting to be washed

A freedom far-fetched, black blazer whitewashed

A bleach stain, a strange thing vomiting vending machine

Tired time machine, 24-7 open heart surgery

Forge me, mock me, barricade me, an empty cell

A praying sickle cell

Surviving, rarely survivor

Second week at the therapist and still ain't said shit

Convinced sadness is nothing getting my dick wet can't fix

And if not my black books contents at least a night of nonsense with the boys

Screaming loud on my fourth Gin and Tonic

Who needs this?

Not me, I ain't no soft little mama's boy missing his daddy

Somewhere crying on his knees

Okay I had a few bad days, a few things not go my way

Disappointments heavy but so is living in this country

I just know that all that talking ain't gonna change my fate

I've been complaining all my life and not a damn thing changed

I've been the man of the house since PJ's and PB&J's

Talking ain't never meant as much as making a way

I told my girl, she said boy go and get paid

I told my mama, she read me a scripture and prayed

I'd tell big mama but her body already dead in the grave

I'm done with this talking dog

What y'all got to say