| Put em up, them bruises are beautiful
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| These key ingredients are beautiful
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| Like cheekbone birthmarks in the shapes of roses, or
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| Third degree burns that retired firemen earned
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| What a privilege!
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| Like Auntie not embarrassed of her scars
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| Proves that she’s cancerless
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| Breast-less, but breathless, (huh)
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| That’s pain
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| Like handcrafted scars, a tapestry of bruises
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| It’s beautiful mutilation like branding and tattoos is
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| That’s pain, huh
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| Like ancient pagan practices of scarification —
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| It damages skin horribly, but them marks demark royalty
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| That’s pain, huh
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| Marred in a Potter’s hands, that’s pain
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| Off on purpose
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| But if you don’t know your purpose, you might feel worthless
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| That’s pain
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| Like hearing the buzz of the motor as that needle digs deep
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| Shoving ink further, forcing it, no, piercing it into permanence
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| That’s pain
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| Made to get another, bottling up my tears till the day that we rise
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| Toss your arthritis filled knuckles to the sky, that’s pain
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| But they’re beautiful
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| Like Hail Mary full of grace
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| She was proud of her stretch marks
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| How her skin expanded to bring forth the Son of Man
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| 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
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| We used to stay home for Martin Luther King, homie, I’m from South Central,
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| and that’s beautiful
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| You is looking at a lastborn, rightful heir to the throne, son of a nobody with
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| poverty in my bones, and that’s beautiful
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| We ain’t never had nothing, but nothing was sufficient
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| 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
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| So in honor of Jimi Hendrix, I string life’s instrument backwards
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| And choose to play the back cause in the Word, the last is first and that’s
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| beautiful
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| (The last is first.)
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| The pain… is beautiful
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| Your mutilation… is beautiful
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| Your life tattoo… is beautiful |