This is my life—

Keeping a tight grip on my pen so I don’t have to

keep a grip on my nine.  Standing on stage

in front of a hostile mob feeding off

the aura of hate because it resonates

with the ire of my soul.  I squeeze tools into

faceless crowds and ejaculate ecstatically

as bodies are trampled and crushed like the

aftermath of a Pamplona bull run.  My hold on

sanity is as tenuous as the interest of

a dope fiend listening to a sermon with

a quarter piece and a pipe in his pocket.

Friends and enemies remember the old me

and refuse to let me change.  They holla

Blood gang, flash gang signs, and ignore my shine.

But this is my life—

a place where passage rites passed me

into manhood pushing hard lines behind harder

walls and cold-rolled steel bars.  I came of age

caged within a six by nine reality kickin it

with lifers trying to tell a young hardhead

there’s a better way.  Six penitentiary terms later,

lessons taught on my first bid are beginning

to make sense.  The dollar and cents materialistic

mentality of a poverty stricken hustla, was the

spiritual cancer that eroded my conscience

till only the bottom-line mattered.  I pushed rocks

to kids, tricked with old ladies, and preyed on family.

But this is my life—

where only the hard survive.

This is where I thrived, staring down gun barrels

and daring mutha-fuckas to shoot.  Chasing suicide

to join my unborn child who died before we even knew

she had been conceived.  For over twenty-five,

I gave less than two fucks about anything

outside of me, da homiez, my queen

or her seeds.  A smile creased my lips with

the regularity of a Death Valley blizzard.

A walking abortion, I tried to fill the emptiness

inside of me with sex, drugs, and Hip-hop.

Now I’m celibate, sober, and listening to

an one-armed percussionist playing taps at my

funeral as I spit my eulogy to an empty chapel,

remembered in death by all those who

failed to love me in life.

This is my life!