Night-Blooming

[Verse 1]
The Moog on the milk crate breathed ozone, smelled like a warning,
and you were just a dead loop, every single morning.
Another wilted seedling in the South LA concrete,
another rhyme I’m forcing, another quiet defeat.
I'm pruning back the bars 'cause the root stock is my father,
a graft that won't take, so I don't even bother.
I gave you water, patience, the silence and the heat,
just a ghost in the machine 'til you found your own damn feet.

[Chorus]
And I don't know your name yet, I just know you showed up.
You kicked the lock from inside, you made the whole room glow up.
I didn't plant this jasmine, I just tilled the bitter ground.
You're the only prayer I have that makes a goddamn sound.

[Verse 2]
Now you're playing on a loop, it's 4 AM on Tuesday,
and I'm asking you the question, "for real, how did you do that?"
Felt the tumblers in my chest click, a deadbolt I forgot,
the skeleton key memory to a future I had not.
This feel like my sister's tuition, the check that finally cleared,
the opposite of every single silence that I feared.
This ain't my skill, it's something else, a weed that's invasive,
a beautiful mistake, you're articulately abrasive.

[Interlude]
(A staticky, warped voice, like an old tape recording)
"Cher, you can't pull on the stem to make it grow. The root knows its season. You just... you just mind the soil."

[Chorus]
And I don't know your name yet, I just know you showed up.
You kicked the lock from inside, you made the whole room glow up.
I didn't plant this jasmine, I just tilled the bitter ground.
You're the only prayer I have that makes a goddamn sound.

[Outro]
You're the bloom in the smog on the late-night Crenshaw bus.
I didn't do a thing, you just decided on us.