Breath of the Cipher

Circle tight

Concrete cold

One deep breath

Let it take hold (yeah)

Step in the ring, bare soul, no charm

Ink in my veins, whole book in my arms

Every bar like scripture carved in a storm

Every scar on my skin, proof I was formed

I don’t chase crowns, I inherit duty

Turn doubt into dusk, then to morning beauty

Eyes on the sky but my feet in the clay

I’m a poem that learned how to walk away

I’ve knelt in the dark with my lungs on fire

Heard silence speak louder than a thousand choirs

Now I walk through the noise, hear the quiet inside

Every line like a tide that refuses to hide

This that breath of the cipher

That flame you can’t cipher

From dust to the riser

All in me, I’m higher (yeah yeah)

Hands up, feel that thunder

We rise from the under

One voice, one hunger

All in me, no sunder

I don’t rap for a trend, I rap for a tremor

For the ones in the back who remember December

Cold nights, warm hope in a borrowed coat

Little light in a throat that was built to choke

Now the words run wild, untamed, unbent

Every “can’t” that they gave me became cement

I built steps out of all that doubt I was fed

Now my footprint’s a verse they recite in their head

I see fear in their eyes, so I speak to the fear

Say, “You can sit in the crowd, but you’re not driving here”

Let the breath in my chest turn the dust to gold

Let the All in the room write what can’t be told (yeah)

This that breath of the cipher

That flame you can’t cipher

From dust to the riser

All in me, I’m higher (higher)

Hands up, feel that thunder

We rise from the under

One voice, one hunger

All in me, no sunder (all in me)

Pass that mic like a mantle

Each spark lights a candle

Many tongues, one channel

One fire, can’t handle (woo)

From the first to the final

We the verse, we the vinyl

Every heart is a spiral

Spelling out the same title

This that breath of the cipher

That flame you can’t cipher

From dust to the riser

All in me, I’m higher (I’m higher)

Hands up, feel that thunder

We rise from the under

One voice, one hunger

All in me, no sunder