Beautiful Pain

Put em up, them bruises are beautiful

These key ingredients are beautiful

Like cheekbone birthmarks in the shapes of roses, or

Third degree burns that retired firemen earned

What a privilege!

Like Auntie not embarrassed of her scars

Proves that she's cancerless

Breast-less, but breathless, (huh)

That's pain

Like handcrafted scars, a tapestry of bruises

It's beautiful mutilation like branding and tattoos is

That's pain, huh

Like ancient pagan practices of scarification -

It damages skin horribly, but them marks demark royalty

That's pain, huh

Marred in a Potter's hands, that's pain

Off on purpose

But if you don't know your purpose, you might feel worthless

That's pain

Like hearing the buzz of the motor as that needle digs deep

Shoving ink further, forcing it, no, piercing it into permanence

That's pain

Made to get another, bottling up my tears till the day that we rise

Toss your arthritis filled knuckles to the sky, that's pain

But they're beautiful

Like Hail Mary full of grace

She was proud of her stretch marks

How her skin expanded to bring forth the Son of Man

That's pain

But it's beautiful

It's beautiful, like villages just before we "discovered" 'em

It's beautiful

Like Grandmama singing in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, see

We used to stay home for Martin Luther King, homie, I'm from South Central, and that's beautiful

You is looking at a lastborn, rightful heir to the throne, son of a nobody with poverty in my bones, and that's beautiful

We ain't never had nothing, but nothing was sufficient

It kept my belly full of the stuff the rich was missing, and that's beautiful

Thank God for the tax return that got us up outta there, that's beautiful

So in honor of Jimi Hendrix, I string life's instrument backwards

And choose to play the back cause in the Word, the last is first and that's beautiful

(The last is first.)

The pain...is beautiful

Your mutilation...is beautiful

Your life tattoo...is beautiful