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 sellin.
My momma’s sick man!
Come on man, Help a playa out.
I’m doin 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)