We've chased the story to Paterson, another teenager murdered

What do you want to be when you grow up?
A police officer
Why do you want to be a police officer?
Because I want to make people safe
If you could change anything about the world, what would it be?
Being yourself
What is your wildest dream for the future?
Umm... I want to be a queen in a castle by the ocean

(Me)

In times like this tend to feel alone
Dreams falling down outside my home
Don't have the answer when kids they asking why

Asking will it get better I don't know
I see your face every time I'm home
Shameful how hard it is to look in your eye

Oh every time
It hurts because I know you won't be by that oceanside tonight

When you cry
I know it's cause you know you lost your chance to ever see the light

They say the pain ain't worth the stories that it writes
And I know a lot of kids' mothers that been sobbing every night
But the status quo don't make it to the news
It seems like when your skin black is when you're feeling all the blues

Little Black and brown kids been abandoned by high society
But we made out to be super predators that's the irony
To hear them tell it's our fault we dying inciting riots
They expect us to sit back and shut up and just take it quietly
But Tell me what you'd do with a record that keep you from a job
Tell me what you'd say to an easy grand right out on the street
If your next meal can't come from within the letters of law
If your fridge empty your daughter ain't got nothing to eat
12 gunnin for your life too
It's Winter
Bitter cold, but your crib ain't got no heat
Is it really wrong to bang for protection, run the streets
serve some bags of dope end up pushing work just to make ends meet?
You Think we deserving of this life
You think we're living in the dark and we can't see the light
You think there's no ambition only scamming running game
That we don't see no out that we don't see no other way
But little Naz had dreams of the WNBA
She was at the wrong place at the wrong time of day
Them gunners passed by, pulled the trigger, retaliate
If you could look her in the eyes tell me exactly what you would say
I remember Sunday all her friends weeping down in the church
A tragic story wish I could tell you it was the first
Wish I could contribute more than recounting her in this verse
Wish her dreams of Bentleys came true instead of riding a hearse
But her name is still remembered in the streets
Gunned down by school 28 right where my mother used to teach
All that's left now is a shrine, roses, candles showing memories we can't touch
And the goals that she'll never reach
And what makes all of the difference
In the nature of this sin is the bread her people missing
Is the color of her skin
Tell her story wondering how we supposed to see life in a new light
When all we're seeing in the streets is flashing red and blue lights

In times like this tend to feel alone
Dreams falling down outside my home
Don't have the answer when kids they asking why

Asking will it get better I don't know
I see your face every time I'm home
Shameful how hard it is to look in your eye

Oh every time
It hurts because I know you won't be by that oceanside tonight

When you cry
I know it's cause you know you lost your chance to ever see the light

Oh help me find
A way to shield my eyes cause I don't wanna see no bodies

In the streetlight
In the streetlight
In the streetlight
In the streetlight
(Won't be by that oceanside tonight)