Black Man's Reality- L.A. Youth
Location
Spirit,
That's what we'll call the name of a boy with the story of a man at sixteen years old
Hear this,
With no worries of his sins nor society's gravitational pull on a black man's soul,
he lived so free in the fleet of his brothers and his haven of flesh hungry streets,
that the same spine that allowed him to stand so tall would eventually buckle & bring him to his knees,
See the business of being bad is dirty and dirty business aint got no place amongst a crowd,
Therefore that night when capacity reached it max and the music was too loud . . .
- - Three shots fired, hundreds of bodies, move but only one falls to the ground,
There lies spirit in the middle of all the madness still as a lake, breathless without sound.
Maurice Mystery,
That's what we'll call the name of a youth who could have had a timeless life,
Victory?
One child, couple of girlfriends and a baby mama- not too far from the typical teenage strife,
He loved to dance and when he did everybody could see it on his face,
His presence was strong as a king when he occupied a public space,
But even Maurice was not fortunate enough to escape the shadow of gang violence in the west,
He was out one Saturday night and . . . point blank. head shot. gone with the rest.
Reality.
That's what I would change, the sad reality of black male youth in Los Angeles today,
The trend that many black males have the forecasted choice to die or be politically ensalved,
The violent but idolized personas of what it means to be a man,
are the same influences that attach themselves to the minds of our children across the land,
So to save the life of a california spirit, or to prevent another west side gang related fatality, the one
thing I would have to change there is the black man's reality.