Tanaga Can you see how each pore blooms? Like the knitting within wombs Or the opening of tombs Sunrise after many moons Verse Don't need to be a star I’ll just stay down to earth Dirt shaded skin, my body a garden of words Proses for roses poetry is birthed From deep roots, yet a green shoot, on elder shoulders Sow a soul into a woman that becomes a man So he grows, but soil turning into quicksand Pigeonholes chokehold millennials potential Prodigal provided devils play the better hand Life's a gamble but he never wears a poker face Just a heart, up his sleeve, wish he had, got an Ace Facebook feed a Red Queen’s Race Couldn’t keep pace so I saved face, wait A second, wish yesterday gave seconds Wish today always had a lesson, pay attention But I’m broke wallet just got 2 cents in it If it’s a penny for your thoughts mine can pay the difference That’s conversation or dialogue, matter of vernacular Realest messages don’t involve a Messenger Cat never had ya tongue, check ya jugular if Hindsight 20/20 then tomorrow needs binoculars Just tryna stand on his own two feet tryna Walk in Lola's shoes so his roots run deep and Like the wings of a seraphim spread his leaves Sow, reap, repeat breathes life to buried seeds, ITM Outro Will we see the sunrise, after many moons? Clouds in the sky keep me, from seeing you January made me forget, the warmth of June Someone tell summer to hurry and come, soon

Verse 1 Grabbed a fountain pen to make a wish gotta spare some sense Faces on my feed made me wanna switch, envious Maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to be these mirrors taunting Me hour hand running laps around my fastest speed Prolly cause I’m prone to waste hours in front of screens If I didn’t maybe it’d be them watching instead of me But I succumb to apathy excuse my youth because it’s green So surplus of weeks can supply my spending sprees Really my hands just footing Screwtape’s shackle-fee With every click, every fib, think I got dexterity in this Act often sworn to pubescent secrecy if this Habit runs 6 feet deep then you can bury me under- Neath the manmade masquerade to farce of foreplay Into an intimate scene of dreams in con artist paint That always produces a picture of pain but the masterpiece Is in a centerpiece of past and future symmetry Hook You can count stars when all ya see is the sun You can count stars when all ya see is the sun You can count stars when all ya see is the sun So I hope you feel His warmth by the time that I'm, done Verse 2 Matthew I still confuse loneliness with solitude Cause either way I’m still ignorant of feeling mutual And honestly by 23 I thought this bliss would be removed Thoughts cannot manifest material but they can Condemn the flesh, so death weds the cerebral since the Pleasure flees when carnal shakes hands with the spiritual still Imagination’s vain pursuit remains my obstacle tragic How fantasies are beautiful but never touchable (ironic chuckle) ... My consolation is that pain births poetry A constellation to dreamers with lots of losing streaks That’s why we tend to speak with our tongue in cheek Sandwiching, what we really mean, in between parenthesis (hit the snare roll) Remember Dear Aunt Sally so please don’t forget the P Then maybe you could see the truth that lies underneath Facades of fake smiles, “it’s been awhile”, and friendly nods so you Can hitchhike all the miles that my shoes have walked, ITM

Verse 1 (ITM) Good afternoon I guess it’s time to go to work Do wishes work like prayers? If so I should get to church But I could use a genie every time I’m on 7th in SOMA I’d make a wish every time I step in Natoma, I’ll list ‘em So listen wish I had Tito Larry’s wisdom maybe then I’d march our people up and down Market and Mission Wish every line I rhyme could get my students open doors Then every single one of my verses would be a 64 Then I’d wish for fifty more, wish I could tear Down Salesforce, every damn floor and corridor (*beat cut out) Tower of Babel funny it’s a big mirror But we’re blind to the blame painted by this metaphor I’d make A wish every time I look at these kids Wish your Dad was around and you had money for rent I wish You’d always be heard and wish you'd never get hurt but Wishes aren’t prayers so I guess it’s time to go to work, ITM Verse 2 (Mavy-e) Little kid talking to the sky asking why Life gets harder every single time Asking for advise, asking for the better days to arrive Everywhere you see displacement, gentrification Skyscrapers in the sky, everywhere you see poverty And the misery of they eyes, the homeless looking for a place To stay for the night a 9-5 Ain’t enough for a decent life, In the limelight of the Frisco lights But that ain’t stop the kid hustling every night And inspite all the surroundings the block Kept him ready to fight and now it’s time to speak the truth To the youth, have them ready to fight spit the roots To these kids cuz the future looks bright equip them With the power of knowledge and Lapu Lapu’s might And maybe one day equality would work But for now y’all it’s time to go to work Interlude (Alexa) I’ll wish on the biggest star Is the morning near or far? Tell me how long we gotta wait For someday to be today? I’ll wish on the biggest star Is the morning near or far? Tell me how long we gotta wait For someday to be today? Outro (Alexa & ITM) For someday to be today? Tell me how long we gotta wait Tell me how long we gotta wait For someday to be today?

Verse Dastardly do duets with my alter-ego We falter egos my dude head to the nearer steeple Off the top I free flow, my writtens barely legal killed Three bald eagles through a peephole like a free throw Is he Black, Bollywood, or burrito? None of the above, bub, better Google Pilipino JesusMarJosep, this Pacquiao in casinos these Exec’s writing checks looking like 8 C-notes Throw the flow for the people, tita's and the titos Evil Kenival on the beams pen got gold in Rio There’s hella fish in the sea but you just found a Nemo These Black Beatles more feeble they frozen in a fetal Went on two dates, they had to pay that’s Double-Dutch Milton Fried said nothing free so just eat ya lunch What can I say, trouble does what trouble does? Here’s Ya supper bud, it’s a knuckle sandwich for a sucker punch Long sentences cause commas on the run that’s Implicit message on the prisons man we love to fund While kids along the margins would rather cop a gun Cause these cops and these guns adding up like a sum wait Maybe that’s too heavy for ya wee little cerebral A-D-D, do the math, ya attention times zero Versace, Versace, Versace, how 'bout these flows? Takes two to Tango, but I tangle three a-Migos, ITM

Verse Magandang Pilipina Reyna Ng Mga Morena Look like second coming of Gabriella Silang Whose roots bloomed a dark skinned Sampaguita worth A hundreds Pias make her Papa "Mama Mia” Sowed with a soft shade of soil from an Eden Reminds me of my own your nose isn’t European Like mine, they look Pinocchio, telling lies Bleaching our bones, brown bodies getting gentrified A mirage in mirrors, don’t you see the para- -dise in you and I, like our land was never colonized? Our ancestors never died, I see them in Your eyes, your mind, and your shining melanin The sunrise they saw when dawn was just a distant friend As long as we don’t forget know that they’ll live again So I wrote this verse to reverse the curse Mr. Harvey Crown every Pilipina on Earth Miss Universe, ITM

Verse 1 Gimme a pen and a pad my pad’ll end up The Pen ITM Gifted with gab, I grab you when I spit, slap you With a map so you can feel where I been I mean Yes I can wrap so when I gab it’s a gift Mama’s Son so ya shade never gona block my shine may be Late, to the game, been on Filipino time but I still Came, 8 rays, I might burn a mic hella Drakes after fame every verse got a Poltergeist Yeah he kill it when he spit it never back down Every bar a bullet, never put The Mac down So wet like Steph Ima need a Sham-wow but How you got bands when you can’t count? You plus me spells defeat but you can’t see Cause you can’t read basic like ABG’s and Light skin wannabes everybody after CREAM but I’m Spitting these beams boy better bring sunscreen, ITM Verse 2 Flick my wrist when I write, every beam been a swish but Your shot laying bricks like you, on mission trips skip All the tracks on ya list, play hopscotch on ya mix But the only chalk on the ground is for the beat I bodied in six Bars, that’s just my intro, Kendrick outta Control Gimme a feature and I’ma write you a diss never kiss And tell, but if a mic meets my lips I’ma tell All you sucka MC’s ya flirting with death so ya Better off just staying friends, you beating me? Better off finding pairs of fists on a pacifist better off Finding a dreamer who never turned pessimist better off Playing chicken with a crash dummy atop a precipice Never wet my pants but now you mad cause you hella pissed Never had stage fright, I show you where the pressure is my People in poverty when I'm imprisoned to privilege but I'll still kill a mic, like I hold a gun and fist, 6

Verse 1 Running in place but still get ahead of myself we may Not be on the same page but I hope we share a shelf Fighting my inner-demons I won a couple belts but It’s been a minute I’ve been in it never saved by a bell What if a leaf, falls in spring? Does a caged bird sing? Does a finder keep, if a loser weeps? What if Soulmates never meet? Or war is the price of peace? What’s A king to a king if they pawns in the grand scheme? Tell me you ever seen a scene of The Unseen? An obscene Sistine in the sixteen of a sinner? Who’s Tryna see what they see when they speak but he meets Elegies that question if he’s just playing pretender I want to get my center back, like Kobe Lakers minus Shaq Just pass the nearest pen and pad, no Dre but I leave Aftermaths Heart on sleeve don’t shake my hand, spill blood on beats that’s passion man Don’t got a plus one should subtract, me and you but I don’t math Yes he can, kill a track, but he can’t, bring ‘em back All the kids, moms and dads, how he still, turn his back? Time is still, running laps, but he can’t, get on track Just tryna find myself but I don’t got a map, Google This, Google that, where’s Sway? I need a rap Where’s ‘Ye? I need a rant, ok I never had The answers either, just got questions in need of hearers Or teachers anyways the best writers are better readers, ITM Verse 2 Don’t squeeze the pen too tight or it won’t write Can’t change minds if yours covered in blinds homesickness Needs a remedy, pass the sympathy sweet Sorrow that borrows tomorrow’s serenity Gotta call more frequently Mama’s prayers never as far In-between must make Heaven smell heavenly says She can’t sing but her amens sound like symphonies make Angels ask for music sheets when she prays for Timothy Wish ticks didn’t tock so much wish clocks Didn’t have wings, I’d put their hands in cuffs If it would just give us hour-long seconds to be All together maybe I could just never grow up Couple months and I’ll have another candle to puff still Wondering if my rap stuff will ever get a buzz Comparison called and said I’ll never be enough “if, and’s, and but’s” never seem to stop his messages If only I believed in me like she does I’d keep up Even if the door closed I’d find the key or bust the hinges Even with a sore throat I’d bang and yell for Wilma Shake hands with the future and say “hello, nice to meet ya” Blood thicker than the water that I’m drowning in barely Learned to swim good thing they bring me back to shallow end if Home is where the heart is guess address got no medicine So my sleeve has her name written in melanin, ITM Home is where the heart is guess address got no medicine So my sleeve has her name written in melanin, 7

Verse Brown boy grew up in a white town Hid his frown underneath a smile cause he Just wanted, to make a few friends even Tried to pinch his nose just so he could fit in prayed He would grow so he could ball with the tall kids 10-year-old wearing number 8, jersey a bit Too big his Mom said that he’d grow into it anyways This was back when tall T’s were fashion trends Moving along his classmates mistook his heritage They all thought he was Black, Indian, no wait Mexican, well didn’t really know himself didn’t Help that his next of kin laughed at his accent You’re so “white washed”, oh my gosh “Why you talk, like that?” their words kinda felt like Getting punched on the inside it didn’t matter Who he was with his body still didn’t fit right But he didn’t know, that he could be mad, too Busy begging his Mom to get back with his Dad and His best friend was white, plus his crushes looked alike So his main concern remained fitting in this Promised Land Til he got a little older and started to place More question marks than periods to punctuate His sentences, like “do they treat me different cause I’m Different?”, and “hey Mom what is my race”? Then he started trying on Mama’s maiden tongue the same One she wore before she swore monogamy to this Blue Empire and asked for the family’s Memories to remember his identity eventually He learned this world’s not a puzzle, it’s more like A painting so he didn’t have to fit a muzzle just to fit In, just had to make the world a little more colorful So he took some beams and became, ITM "Saan Ka Man Naroroon"(My Lolo) Saan ka man naroroon sinta (Wherever you are, my love) Pag-ibig kong wagas (My love so pure) Ang ‘yong nadarama (Is what you will feel) Kailan pa man (You will never) Sa iyo’y lilimot (Be forgotten)