but the game ain't designed for no kind of winning

I sit, still the spider in the web, spinning dreams and conclusions, storied tales and confabulations, but tremors shake the silk. Fluttering through the strands, and has it come to that time, at long last? Could we not have waited another week, another century?

If I could give you the world on a silver platter
Would it even matter? You'd still be mad at me
If I could find in all this a dozen roses
Which I would give to you, you'd still be miserable

I hear you, of you, from time to time. We spin in separate circles now, but I dance, and you spin, and the echoes meet and rearrange the worlds between us. You dance, and I spin, and for all that I spin alone, these days, I spin still. I have never been afraid to be alone. How afraid are you of dancing your steps in solitude?

In reality I'm gon' be who I be and I don't feel no faults
For all the lies that you bought
You can try as you may, break me down when I say
That it ain't up to you, gonna do what you do

If you wish me to play the viper at the breast, then so be it: but be warned. My poison will not fade with time. Not a person has met me, for good or ill, has spent any level of time with me, in joy or sorrow, but emerges changed from the experience. I linger. Like fear, like hunger, I linger.

Hate on me, hater, now or later
'Cause I'm gonna do me, you'll be made, baby
Go 'head and hate on me, hater, I'm not afraid of
What I got I paid for, you can hate on me

And I will be here.

Ooh, if I gave you peaches outta my own garden
And I made you a peach pie, would you slap me out?
Wonder if I gave you diamonds out of my own womb
Would you feel the love in that, or ask why not the moon?

I will dance across parquet floors, stone floors, metal floors, grass, again. I will walk in the bright spaces and listen to the music playing, the echoes that it leaves. I will build and I will analyze, declaim and listen, sitting by the fire or by the seaside in my hundred shades of skin.

If I gave you sanity for the whole of humanity
Handed all the solutions for the pain and pollution
No matter where I live, despite the things I give
You'll always be this way, so go 'head and--

I will be here.

Hate on me, hater, now or later
'Cause I'm gonna do me, you'll be made, baby
Go 'head and hate on me, hater, I'm not afraid of
What I got I paid for, you can hate on me

I will walk the world and beyond, I will walk other worlds, I will dream of my own worlds. In time, perhaps others will dream of my worlds, too. I will dance the center point between good and evil, right and wrong, and where I step, I will leave a mark.

Hate on me, hater, now or later
'Cause I'm gonna do me, you'll be made, baby
Go 'head and hate on me, hater, I'm not afraid of
What I got I paid for, you can hate on me

I will be here.

You cannot hate on me 'cause my mind is free
Feel my destiny, so shall it be
You cannot hate on me 'cause my mind is free
Feel my destiny, so shall it be

I will socialize with nobility and peasantry, despising neither, knowing myself neither high nor low in station, and spinning in the center of my web the stuff of dreams and nightmares. I am a part, and apart, from the machinations around me, and so it should be, after all this time. But do not draw me in, do not seek me out; do not paint me your enemy unless you truly wish to be mine.

Hate on me, hater, now or later
'Cause I'm gonna do me, you'll be made, baby
Go 'head and hate on me, hater, I'm not afraid of
What I got I paid for, you can hate on me

For my gift has always been to make things worse; my pattern makes the dancers stumble. Moreover, karma spins faster around me, dealing good and bad in kind, in reflection. These are the runes etched on my bones, etched on the inside of my skull, and I am content to let things lie unless you remind me of what you want me to be.

Do not remind me. Let us keep to social graces, let me stay in the web, spinning uselessly; it will keep me occupied and far from you and yours. Do not offer me challenge, not in this dance. For I will take it, and I will spin to that music, and I never come to the dance unarmed.

And I will be here.

("Hate On Me" lyrics are © Blue's Baby Music, under Universal Music Corporation, sharing with Jat Cat Music Publishing, Inc. It was originally sung by Jill Scott, and co-written by Adam Blackstone, Steven McKie, and Jill Scott.)