CHALLENGER'S RAP

• The land’s black, the air’s bad, the path’s jagged glass
• But I made it, I climbed and fought, left y’all to rot like some trash
• Y’all lashin’, hands outstretched, banging, grasping, scratching
• Always wanting, taking, dragging, I’d been down there in my past life
• Standing in the mass with my hands shaking and my eyes hollow
• Mouth open, waiting for the next hit that kept me low
• I’d been one of y’all, starving and sucking on the sickness
• But I climbed, and you hated that cause y’all are just some bitches
• You hated the way I had pulled past you before you could blink
• Hated that I had fought hard and left you to sink
• Hated that I had snapped the leash off my neck
• And let you choke on their own filth so you could be upset
• Hated that I had left you and them behind
• But what the hell was I supposed to do with my time
• Stay rotting in that pile, hands out, waiting for my next fix
• You said you were gonna climb but you lied like a bitch
• You swore you’d break free, but you stayed down there
• You said you could stop, you said it wasn’t real so you weren’t scared
• You said you were strong, you were wrong, I watched you below, as
• A lost thing, moaning, swaying, arms out, mouth open
• Waiting for the next wave to crash over you, it could’ve been me
• I could’ve been down there, choking and rotting
• I could’ve let myself be taken, could’ve followed you and given in
• But I climbed, and I ain’t going back ever again
• Fog rolling thick and low, swallowing the ground
• Voices calling, clawing at my ribs, trying to pull me back down
• But you can scream, you can cry, you can curse my name
• But you can’t have me, not now, not ever, I cast that bridge into flames
• The sun’s been swallowed by the filth below, I’m standing on the roof
• Of the Willis Tower, looking down at the wreckage of the avenue
• Where the bodies crawlin’ like maggots over the bones of a city
• That should’ve burned years ago, but I escaped, I dragged myself out
• I had climbed, but they never let go, they still called when I was around
• The hollow eyed fiends clawing at the pavement
• Rattling the empty subway tunnels, like go away pricks
• You’re still down there, swaying in front of the ruins of a Walgreens
• Where we used to slip through the back door with crumpled money
• Where you used to tell me it wasn’t bad, that it wouldn’t be lasting
• That it’s just a rough patch, and that I’m overreacting
• And now you’re just another corpse with a heartbeat
• I’m feeling the craving rise up in me, like an old enemy
• Whispering through my bloodstream, the sickness never leaves
• It just waits, watches, bides its time, just one more, you can come back
• You were never better than us, now the city’s slithering with the damned
• Half-human, half-something else, I see them slumped over in the alleys
• Of South Side, nodding off, they lost, I won, they can’t come at me
• Reach into my backpack, fingers gripping the cold steel, rip off a corpse
• Pull it out, I’d taken it off a dead guy behind a 7 eleven earlier before
• Then I flick the flame and see you staring at me from below
• With your vacant eyes, your arms are limp and your body’s about to fold
• Telling me that I’ll be back, and I tell you not in this lifetime
• I let go, and the city burns from daytime to nighttime