So tonight I went to open mic determined to really go for it. I have a lot of poems that were written to be delivered powerfully but any time I've ever read them I've read them rather timidly. So tonight I really got after it and people liked it a lot. I did this one from memory.


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Sleeping Awake
- by green.earth.al
- Jan.26.2004
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Turn the key and press the gas and just go park on the highway
And sip some Starbucks coffee it's the dawn of a same day
Except your working much harder now but still collecting the same pay
And when you stop to pump ya gas ya ass ain't got that much to say
Okay, Don't make no eye contact, you spozed to keep to yourself
Don't waste time talking to somebody, you got to try and get that wealth
Just do for self, forget about ya family's mental health
"They'll forgive me when they see HDTV on the shelf"
So anyway, What you know about these gas plantations?
location, location, location, location
that's why we had to take their nation, it helps you at the gas station
It's convenient to ignore... the war for global domination

Go ahead feel powerless against it, just stay stuck in the sand
don't try too hard to understand, and just keep helpin the man
Look ya children in the eye, and lie, and say you'll do the best that you can
But you have that remote in your hand, while they're raping the land


We need to export McCulture? What's up with that?
Caucasions teachin Asians how to eat lots of fat
and blacks... droppin dead from major heart attacks
because you're trained to eat whack and make that money stack
it's a fact! Close your eyes, it will still be a fact
pizza hut + Jenny Craig = you've been attacked
And down here the people's needs keep loosing out to the space chase
I think therefore I am... in their database
They don't create no cure no more, you get a pill to maintain
and the cost goes up so get your cup and pour your dough down the drain
somehow you're shackled to the system but you can not see the chain
don't open no bills, just pop them pills that be soothin ya brain
you think you're sane, cause they keep sayin this is how you should live
don't try to find no better way, don't strive to find no fuck to give

Go ahead feel powerless against it, just stay stuck in the sand
don't try too hard to understand, and just keep helpin the man
Look ya children in the eye, and lie, and say you'll do the best that you can
But you have that remote in your hand, while they're raping the land