DEFENDER'S RAP

• People want to be praised for mediocrity, hugged for being slow
• You don’t need to agree, but at least pretend to not be allergic to growth
• And coddled through failure, real crime is lying to your damn self every day
• And calling it optimism, or wasting every second of potential that you say
• You have, or pretending your laziness is some misunderstood genius phase
• That’s the felony, that’s the theft of a life you’ll never get back any day
• Criticism used to mean dialogue, now it’s a social media thread
• Filled with basement-dwellers screaming shallow metaphors
• Quotes from people who’ve never read a book longer than a tweet, of course
• Real critique demands work, most people aren’t ready for that
• They want validation, not evaluation, and power can also be subtle, that’s a fact
• Sometimes it's a central bank deciding inflation targets
• Without one damn vote cast by the people they affect, it’s retarded
• Crime is the abuse of power, and the rejection of criticism
• All crimes against your own potential, and the punishment is
• A life of delusion, you've got Stanford engineers building the same apps
• They now write about escaping from, digital detox is what they refer to it as
• Criticism is only welcome if it maintains the illusion of open discourse
• While reinforcing the same stale power structures that got us here before
• You talk about crime while robbing others of time, peace, and patience
• Just by being around them, you want to fight injustice
• Start with the shitstorm in your own mirror, power is magnetic, isn’t it
• Like the promise of control can somehow fix the chaos inside of it
• Target and IKEA make money from your pain, retail therapy’s just legalized
• Bribery to keep you compliant, the fight for meaning is a pit fight
• A kid selling weed gets ten years in Rikers, isolation is the modern philosopher
• In exile, authors scribbling about the banality of evil while you sit comfortably in your
• Suburb, watching atrocities through the cushion of detachment
• The meltdown is Oscar-worthy when they lose their power, cause it was never about
• The responsibility, it was the performance, the image that they found
• The illusion that others actually feared them, strip away their titles, their badges
• And all you're left with is a fragile ego in search of a leash to grab on
• Isolation creeps in not as a choice, but as a consequence of stupidity
• Of being so emotionally unavailable you might as well be a vending machine
• With no snacks, they call it peace, but you know what it is
• It’s everyone else finally giving up on trying to make a connection
• It’s the result of burning bridges and expecting people to start swimmin’
• But keep romanticizing that cold, silent apartment as a temple
• Of enlightenment, isolation is the reward for a life spent pushing everyone away
• And then acting surprised when no one shows up, no matter how long you wait
• Criticism when done right can build empires, but most of y’all
• Treat it like a mugging, like honesty came at them with a chainsaw
• Because it hurts, doesn't it, not the words, but the realization of the fact
• That people see through your crap, that nobody wants to clap
• So maybe, just maybe, you're not all that, and yet, criticism is a gift
• You reject like a spoiled brat at Christmas, you’ll collect fake compliments
• Like Funko Pops, stack them up to feel big, and then cry and sob
• When the whole shelf collapses, you don’t need another ego massage
• You need a damn intervention and a sledgehammer to the pedestal
• You built from participation trophies, crime is about betrayal
• Not just laws, it’s in the moments you know better but choose worse
• In the lies you tell to make yourself look noble while you murk
• Other people’s reality, every time you manipulate, dodge accountability
• Or twist words to win an argument, you're a criminal
• Just not the fun kind, and society rewards this shit, the worst offenders
• Get book deals, the scum that rises to the top gets labeled as ambitious
• Or strategic, so crime pays, just not in ways your broke ass will ever cash in on