Jordan L.

And So It Goes

And so it goes, I think that’s what that corpse had told
I’m getting ahead of myself, let me return and let this tale unfold
It starts with me, out at sea, in this busted lil boat with a talking corpse next to me
We was out here searching for this golden key
Your boy do love gold but that wasn’t even what it’s about my g/
This was the key to the gates heaven, its ridges they numbered seven/
I held it with the highest reverence/
Now, I wasn’t even fully sure how you got this golden key/
But I set out, And for the first few years/
I was just in the water floating/
Subject to the ocean’s motion/
Looking without a lead as to where this key was posted/
Pestering my dead partner for anything, a map, an omen/
I tried everything, morality, mediation, faith, deprecation, violence, prayer/
I even tried to see if the thing to went the highest payer/
The dead homie saw me struggling so he decided to help a nigga out/
It said “Fam, you aren’t gon’ ever get an answer you keep asking the wrong questions”/
You ain’t gon never hit your target you using the wrong weapon, you looking for the wrong
thing in the wrong place/
You might as well try to find a needle that don’t exist, not in a haystack but an abyss/
You out here with the hubris of a Brutus, and the grace of a tick”/
I told it to
Shut the hell up talking to me if he wouldn’t just tell me where the golden key is/
It replied “Bro, I’m tryna help you out bro nem ion need this/
“I like you tho, so here it is simple for your slow behind/
Now I need all y’all to pay close attention, more important words would never cross my mind
It said heaven isn’t a location, it’s an state of being, the eternal spirt of everything you attune
with/

And the meaning of life ain’t a thing until you’d decide and choose it/
Then what I thought he meant hit me/

They golden key was lie/
A hurricane of thoughts started to form in my mind
It started to sink in
I look at the water, my boat started to sink in
The waves got choppy, slicing my spirit explicitly/
The water rose, a whole wave of dread washed up over me
I’m panicking, scrambling, praying and tryna plug the leaks
That’s when I heard him say it, “And so it goes” I’m muffled speech
I sunk, woke up face down and alone on a fucking beach/
Sun beaming, Sand in my throat burning like I’m sipping bleach

I stand up

I can’t believe, conceive, accept that the object of my quest, this key over which I stressed
never existed/
It’s one of those lightbulbs over my head but it flashed so bright that it blinded me
Truth shining brighter than the sun, my mind’s eye would go blind if turned to see
So I lied to myself, tried whatever I could to regain my inner peace
It took a few more years but what that corpse was said so long ago started to dawn on me/
It was foolish to chase the key like an external treasure or go to the extreme that didn’t exist/
I never needed to find the key to heaven I needed to find the gates that’s what I missed/
Then I remembered what the corpse had said & that it went pretty much like this
Heaven isn’t a place, it’s a state of being, it’s the eternal spirit of everything that you attune
with/

And the meaning of life ain’t a thing until you’ decide and choose it/

Then it hit me

The gates, and key was inside a nigga all along

I just had to learn to use it/
And so it goes.