When the lie stops working

They don’t eat you with knives, nah, they wine and dine
Lease on your spine, put your soul on a timeline
Call it a ladder but the rungs made of backs
Smile for the camera while they break the facts
Say “work hard” while they siphon your breath
Life on layaway, paying interest to death
No chains on your wrists, just a badge and a key
Open-plan cage, welcome to “free”
HOOK
They don’t gotta touch you, they already won
Got you running in circles just to feel like someone
Say it’s fair, say it’s fate, say you chose this kind of hate 
West Coast sun but it still rain pain 
No sirens, no screams, just a quiet drain
Till belief walk out slow, leave a bloodstain
Yeah belief walk out slow, that’s the change
When the lie stop working, that’s the flame
Verse 2
Merit badge lies on a broken man chest
Told him “if you failed, you just didn’t want it best”
Boss talk God, numbers pray back
Golden calf graph on a PowerPoint stack
Everybody dirty so nobody speak
Rent due fear make the strong feel weak
You defend the whip ‘cause you sit in the ride
Even when you know somebody else paid with their life
Say “it’s complex,” say “you wouldn’t get it”
Funny how the experts always seem to benefit
Proof behind doors with a keypad tone
Shredder sing lullabies, sleep well under drone
HOOK
They don’t gotta touch you, they already won
Got you running in circles just to feel like someone
Say it’s fair, say it’s fate, say you chose this hate
West Coast sun but it still rain pain 
No sirens, no screams, just a quiet drain
Till belief walk out slow, leave a bloodstain
Yeah belief walk out slow, that’s the change
When the lie stop working, that’s the flame
Verse 3
Ain’t no apocalypse, no fire in the sky
Just a million little moments where the story don’t apply
When the laugh get nervous, when the jokes fall flat
When “that’s just how it is” don’t cover that
No hero cape, no final war
Just people seeing stains on the kitchen floor
Can’t unsee once you catch that scent
Normal start cracking like a bad cement
Not about rage, not about hate
It’s about who eats time off another man plate
And the scariest sound ain’t a gunshot ring
It’s the room going quiet when nobody sing
HOOK
They don’t gotta touch you, they already won
Got you running in circles just to feel like someone
Say it’s fair, say it’s fate, say you chose this hate
West Coast sun but it still rain pain
No sirens, no screams, just a quiet drain
Till belief walk out slow, leave a bloodstain
Yeah belief walk out slow, that’s the change
When the lie stop working, that’s the flame
Outro
No bang, no boom, just a door unlatch
Truth step outside, don’t look back
Cruise slow, bass low, city still breathe
Whole system shake when we stop believing

West Coast truth rap: velvet bass, cracked mirrors, quiet rage 95 BPM—laid-back West Coast groove, enough swing, male