Tree Of Knowledge Lyrics - Sage Francis

I'm a construct of your world, deep-rooted, polluted and tortured 

Abused and altered, I just caught you eves dropping 

Adam's rising to pluck the fruit from off the branch 

reaching out to touch your inner-drives 

Cut me open and count the rings inside to see how long I've been alive 

Containing forms of records about the types of storms I've weathered 

Leave a stump for kids to carve initials as long as I'm remembered 

But lessons go forgotten plus you don't believe a thing 

Listening to the whispering of my leaves in the wind 

When the breezes begin you're just concerned with flying kites 

Till I tangle up your child's play and get you climbing heights 

Still reluctant to hear me out admiring the sites 

You have no idea what it was like being nailed to Christ 

You're swinging from the twigs and limbs that used to hang your siblings 

Have respect you selfish self-centered sack of man-made buildings 

I was the original pinnacle but now I'm nothing to you but kindling 

Tickling my inhibitions of naturally attracting children 

Who have a funny idea of what forever is 

I witnessed the first time lips kissed with stripped innocence 

Not too long after that was I supplying shade 

For a man caressing silverbacks trying to get laid 

Monkeying around and now they're all dying of A. I. D. S 

Government guerilla tactics? That's a farce, I bring the plagues 

Cancer? That's just icing on the cake, I nurse and feed ya 

Cause you drained me of my sap with taps of perverse procedure 

I hold your family background right down to the first amoeba 

Watched you grow from just crustacean to a land mammal, it hurts to leave ya 

But I've had enough, and it'll be very relieving 

Just who do you think supplies the air you're breathing? 

Humongous oxygen tanks? As if it's all free 

Constantly wondering where your dogs are at? 

They're barking up the wrong tree 

Wanting proof of identification but I existed before fingerprints 

Cognitive dissonance... I hear chainsaws in the distance 

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it 

Does it make a sound? I'll go down quietly but you're feel it 

Still these sick like thoughts keep eating away at my inside 

Till I'm nothing but hollowed out hide.. 

The dead tree's still standing, here comes the hunting-ax of lumberjacks 

So I attract like lightning when the thunder cracks, I'm under attack 

So I may finally... stop... stumble... relax...