“Emotionless Thoughts,” by Amr Awaad
November 21, 2017
Emotionless Thoughts
Rhyming is my nature and words are my dreams
Because everything I say doesn’t look but it sees
The future’s right in front of us but people are blinded
By the harsh facts, so they always try to hide it
I am one of the best of my generation
While not rapping about girls, crack, or fornication
Only real shit that you never see on TV
Because the keyhole isn’t always where you find the key
So I’m sent out there to help all of the masses
To not be suffocated by the toxic gasses
Of people lying to you, saying all is fine
While there are people starving to death and stepping on their mines
And lies are spread about my people, it’s evil
It’s lethal, so I use my pen as a needle
Ring a steeple, turn my people peaceful
Inject them with the serum, turn them to equals
Because we should all should be seeing each other
as sisters and brothers that see in color
Learn from the cultures, don’t be vultures
Take care of your 4 and 7, don’t forget about the others
Because they’re structures
To your body and soul
Open up your chakras to achieve your goal
You’ll see your world beyond the white and the black
How the government downplays historical facts
The technique is the key to Nirvana
Calm as the earth tryna hide its lava at its core
Which is the center of the world
Meditating watching the flow of your 4
Until you reach the shore
Shielding yourself with the best affinity
Feeling the pressure between my peers rise up
With half of them telling me that I need to grow up
Leave my people, I can hear them call prophet Mohammed evil
But deep inside of me I feel like he is still my people
See, it’s messed up that I have to be enduring all of this
In a country where I’m treated like a second class citizen
With everyone stereotyping me as a terrorist
Because of my religion, seeing my melanin
I’m sick and tired of people asking me if I pray five times a day
Don’t give a fuck if I’m okay or not
I just want to be like an American, free
Believe me, don’t turn my life 360 degrees
That way nothing will change if you keep shutting your brain
To the pain that minorities feel, it’s so surreal
Look into my eyes closely and then ask me how I feel
Reminiscing on my lifetime a couple years back
I was living back in Egypt, where your defense was to attack
Where my people were getting beat up and bullied, no freedom
While the people in power were lounging in their own Eden
So there you go, a flashback from my life
I never got to take a breather, it was full a strife
Even coming into this country was a hassle
Being stopped by the TSA coming into Seattle
Asking me about how the hell I became an American
Thinking I’m a heathen by looking at my melanin
And then they claim that they’re doing good for the people
That’s not the case even though what they do is legal
Because the tables are leaned towards the white man
But when the table spills all over them, they would call a ban
So the only way is to revolt, topple the system
That’s why Adam ate the forbidden fruit, taking its wisdom
Amr Awaad is a 2016/17 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. He performed this piece at our sold-out 2017/18 SAL Presents event with Reza Aslan on November 14, 2017.