Asylum

I think Mengistu Haile Mariam is my neighbor

Whoever it is moved in and put an automated gate up

Repainted brick walls atop which now cameras rotated

By eight, the place dark, one light burn later

Razor wire like a slinky

Rumor is parcel bomb took the secretary right eye and pinky

Evenings, he take a snifter of whiskey on the veranda

I wonder what he's thinking

In the morning, the maid brings coffee from the kitchen

Some nights strange music plays, I lay in bed and listen

Downstairs I hear my mother breaking dishes, my father trippin'

It's been quite bad lately, high tension

Galvanized steel security fencin'

To get through the day, give myself a mission

Anything what get me out the house a blessin'

His bodyguard chews khat, spits black in the rhododendron

Blacked out Range rumble when he start the engine

Avocado tree hang over the property line

And I watch from as high as I can climb

The dog looks up and whines, the hills are alive with land mines

I live in my mind

Not sure what I'm looking for, but I'll know when I find

My mother sent the gardener to look for me

But the sky is a great place to hide

Never told the truth in your life? Can't start now

Ever so slowly, slowly locked up in your own house

Never told the truth in your life? Can't start now

Ever so slowly, slowly locked up in your own house

The guests start having doubts, the host nowhere to be found

It's ghosts in the building's bones, so many skeletons in the ground

When everything collapse, he just melt into the crowd

Suitcase packed, melted down the crown

But a haven's only safe as long as they want you around

Tomorrow it's no tellin'

Hollow when you done sellin'

You see how well they treat me?

My own courtyard for private strolls

And in my chalet, every possible amenity

Not to mention the occasional night visitors

I must confess kabiyesi, this detention seems to look well on you

But, so does captivity look well on a lamb

We are fattening up for the feast

Or, perhaps as you say, on a wife we treat

With special favor because she is going to bear us a child

What happens when the great day comes

And there is only a calabash under the wrapper