Nagareboshi
Smooth as a cactus flower
Cold as a supernova
A shooting star among dragons
Nigga I was always the jack of odd balls
I'm sorry, all trades and master of one-of-dones
Life really hasn't been a rave considered fun
It's a game that's pay to win
Pay your debts bitch
Money talks
Cash is king
Credit don't mean shit
You're too far in it to quit
I am nothing without my れ
From a time when all I knew
Was a name that stained my soul
As permanent as the tears I've cried
The night I learned too young
What it was like to stain your lips
From an overly curious boy
That you had called your family for hours
And you were deathly afraid of the consequences in telling anyone
Because “Heaven Knows” it was more of a crime “if I turned out gay” than if I was SA’d
Well it's no fun when you're the one tasting the bitter blade
I weep for my previous name because he
Never had a chance but I am thankful
For him because he birthed me
A birth that I spent too long hiding behind the same mask that I was born in.
I was never him, I never knew what me was.
What I saw on my computer screen were friends being free
Guys wearing skirts who would eventually become beautiful women
Bro I wasn't thinking of any of that I was too busy trying not to get picked on for being a weirdo
A quiet MF who stayed in the corner of the class playing on his Gameboy in lunch breaks
Told that piece of shit called my father that it was the village who raised me from a teen
Some of my best homies I met at one-thirteen are still a touch away if I need them
But not even they know the real me
Because I never knew who that bitch was until the eve of losing my life.
My mother. She was my life.
It has not been be same since that eve.
It's ironic isn't it? I spent two years of my life feeling the most liberated I felt.
The one person who I would be terrified and curious of seeing me like this is not here.
How would you feel? What would you react?
You'd tell me to clean my fucking room first off
You'd gasp and have a heart attack for seeing how I treat your wig
You'd see my photos and those focal points of anger would melt away
Even close confidants of us say that we look alike
Heck, we always did even when I was him
And when I told you I was non-binary you still accepted me even though you didn't get it.
I think you would have been a big help in my path of knowing how to use makeup
How to present myself
I've been going to lounges and open mics, bars and house shows with my friends
Isn't this what you used to do during The Garage and Roseland era?
I find myself protecting my homies much like a guard on standby
But I have fun because I know I'm protected.
So what did you do when you didn't feel protected?
When Jeannie passed, what went through your mind?
You left the apartment in a storm, grabbed your Newports, and I stayed up
I had school the next day but I had a stomach virus
But I didn't want to leave your side the following day and nothing you said was going to get me to go to school
I lied, you woulda forced me but promised me you'd be okay
I couldn't face Jeannie on her deathbed. I couldn't face you with the sheet over your body.
This wasn't meant to be a letter to you!
But…you are me, are you not?
When someone asked if my new name is my birthday, I said, I wasn't sure if I could call it.
But when you gave birth to me, you said it was a second birthday to you, right?
So, maybe, this whole Flow thing…was…like a second birthday for me.
When I lost you… Flow was born…
She…and you…became my second birthday.
That is in my name.
Malik was the middle name given to me by my mother.
My father gave me Naquan. In her words, he felt the name sounded cool.
But Malik had meaning. It meant King.
You looked up to Malcolm X.
That was his name. Malik el-Shabazz
I played Elden Ring two years ago
The main antagonist, her name was Marika.
There are no “Ls” in the Japanese language
So you can see the correlation, Malika, which means queen.
A tragic tale as antagonists don't really exists in that game
Just people with their own duties to fulfill.
But even that felt too similar to my old self.
Reyna was the result of weeks of sitting alone after work, high out of my mind
Because it is the only way I have solace these days.
It means Queen but it's so fucking versatile! Reyn sounds close enough to Nay
Reyna is Re:Nay. Rebirth of Nay
And to emphasis that
The middle name’s Renée
The last name’s Nagare
Because that's just how it flows.
No, seriously, 流れ means Flow.
But if you take the れ away…
It becomes 流 (In person imagine me saying Ryu)
And this is also a part of me because there are many Flows to my essence.
I got many styles, all this time this was a poem
But I'm having a conversation with you
On some crazy stream of consciousness shit
Streams and flows, that's what it means when you take away the れ
But the “Re” is what makes me, me!
Without the Re, I'm not Reyna, a sovereign
I'm Nay without a birthright.
Renée without the Re is stillborn, much like how I spent two-thirds of my life
I can be a shooting star among dragons
But that's not my true calling,
That's like in the Street Fighter movie
Where they gave “Ryu” the name “Ryu Hoshi”
He is not a “Shooting Star” he a “Rising Dragon”
I am the Spark to your Soul among the stars
And my Soul is a fucking Satellitare
Pardon my Italian tongue
But I'm as beautiful as a Rose
And I almost fucking forgot that.
If only I wasn't staring at the Torii gates mentally
Mix my soul with the Spirit Realm
Walking around with a halo over my head
Even Lazuli got caught lacking among the Z-Fighters
No one is wasting a prayer on me with the Dragon Balls
It was a good run but all stars fade.
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