The Prelude: 
  Young Freedom in Chains
 

  -By Rob Will 5/2006

  What makes you feel free? - Lily

  Many times freedom wears a mask and under that mask lays the face of death.
  We recognize its face yet we kiss its lips.
  The taste is sweet, so sweet it hurts.

  I left home wading through pill bottles
  And generations of built up hatred
  Dodging corvette red talons
  And screams.

  You little no good bastard, you are nothing!
  You’re no good! You are never ever going to amount to anything!
  You’re just like your father! You’re just like your fucking father!
  You’re no fucking good! You’re just like… Just, just…
  Just like…Your father.

  And the venom trailed off
  Violent crying replaced
  By a childlike whimper
  Psychotropic bliss.

  I wish you would just talk to me.
  That’s all I want. I love you mom. I just want you to talk to me.

  Black and grey backpack stuffed full and bulging with ambition
  Screw tapes laced with ‘Pac, clothes and Ziplocs. Three pounds of weed
  And a triple-beam Beretta 92f I got from Billy M. before he was killed.
  Heat on my waist and city lights in my eyes.

  Fuck, It wasn’t my fault that little punk snitched on me
  And that asshole school cop, who thinks he’s still in Vietnam,
  found weed on me.
  I mean, shit, weed should be legal and uncle gave it to me anyway.
  Plus, how the hell was I supposed to get school clothes?

  Northside hotel room
  Wallpaper yellow from
  Years of weed, crack, and cigarette smoke.
  The dull piss yellow
  Of a dope fiends smile.

  Hey whiteboy! Hey, Say, say, Let me holla atcha’ fo a minute.
  See, peep game young playa! I ain’t like them ole stupid ass niggas.
  See, Nigga like me got some sense! I’m cool with them white folks man.
  I like white-folks, Led Zeppelin and them, Pink Floyd and them.
  Shit, all them white folks cool! Now, I see you, A young
  hustler, A playa, You about your paper.
 Go on and let a fellow playa get 10 dollars and a couple them blunts you be sellin?
 Cool man, I’m cool with them white folks! These lil punk ass niggas ain’t about shit!
 Just let a playa get a lil somethin’ man!

  Pyrex psychology
  Fully auto street game
  Spit clean in 60 seconds.

  Shit, man, just let me get 50 dollars then and one of them blunts you be selling.
  My momma’s sick man! Come on man, Help a playa out. I’m doing bad right now.
  Led Zeppelin and them man! I’m cool with them white folks!
  Come on, don’t do me like that man! Shit, hell with you then!
  I ain’t never liked no goddamn honkies anyway!

  Sad white spots
  Struggling to free themselves
  From their yellow coating
  40 ounce bottles lie
  Empty on the floor
  Little transparent dreams
  Turned to nightmares
  Waiting to be forgotten
  Old English
  St. Ides
  Mickies
  (Because Everlast from House of Pain drinks Mickies)

  Everyone else is passed out
  Young bodies on twin beds
  More on the floor
  Young male minds
  Dreaming of
  “Pussy, weed and alcohol”
  “Money, hoes, and clothes”
  Young female minds
  Dreaming of love
  And acceptance.

  My beeper beeps
  150-911
  Tito wants a quarter pound.
  I hang up the phone
  And leave
  Past the chain-smoking Pakistani at the front desk
  Always sweating through his polyester shirt.

  My freend, My freend, Do not forget my freend!
  Tommorrow Saturday, Pay one more week my freend.
  Maybe one the sexy girl for me one night?
  Hmm, My freend? Hmm?
  No pay for you two weeks my freend, If for me one night the sexy girl?
  Good, good, My friend?

  Two dirt-faced franklins
  On the desk
  Polyester stretching tight
  Across an overfed stomach
  Buttons crying out for help
  Black chest hair
  With grey highlights
  Thin tentacles reaching out
  For the American dream.

  Ok, ok, My freend.
  Maybe next time one the sexy girl for me my freend!
  Ha, ha, ha, haaaaa!!…..

  I hop in the Honda accord
  Light up a blunt
  Screwdriver in the ignition
  Crank the ride
  Tape in the deck
  Screwed and chopped ‘Pac
  Blazin’ out the speakers.

  “Back in Back in elementary, I thrived on misery
  Left me alone, I grew up amongst a dyin breed
  Inside my mind couldn't find a place to rest
  Until I got that Thug Life tatted on my chest”

  All black hat
  Cocked to the side
  Black shirt
  9 in my lap
  On blue jean dickies
  Quarter pound under the seat
  Air Max on the pedal

  On the Highway
  Wind in my face
  No school cops harassing me

  No teachers or preachers
  No drunken uncles talking shit
  No condemnation or hate

  Weed smoke in my lungs
  Subconscious suicide
  A kiss so sweet
  That it hurts
  Young freedom, in chains.

 “What is it to be born free and not live free”-
  H.D. Thoreau,
  Life Without Principal (1863)