Deep City Cuts (Album)

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But my love isn’t for the forces that claim to own and run these cities, but for the endless variety of ordinary working people who survive there together and manage to make neighborhoods out of shitty high-rise buildings. People who run homey little bodegas where cats sleep amidst the bags of potato chips on the shelves, or who start a masjid in a storefront, or who volunteer time in a community legal center just next door to the masjid. 

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          Somehow, despite everything,
       human beings make janky, jalopy communities amidst
                 the police bullshit and
            the city hall corruption,
       between the swindles that drain their bank accounts and
            the attempts to crush their spirits,
                in that weird space
                     between God and the motherfucking landlord.
     It's in that narrow, negotiated breathing room that
          I've drunk cans of beer on the roof
          of a low-rise in LA with badass Latina girls
               and been teased by
               Black girls on the south side of Chicago bc
               some guy who gave me a ride thought
                    (I guess)
               that it'd be funny to drop me off there, and
                    done coke in a cherry-red vintage Mustang with
                    some Appalachian dude who
                    had stolen the car.
                    And the coke.