Happy Meal
So here’s some background & context. The following piece is a culmination of my scatterbrain thoughts. I pretty much blacked out on this once I realized it wasn’t going to consistently rhyme & I was at peace with it. I wrote this in like 30 minutes because it turned into a huge stream of conscientiousness & a look at my life & if I’m ducking certain issues like family, accountability & a bunch of other stuff. This was the second thing I wrote after “Black Excellence in Hindsight.” I felt like if I don’t put myself on trial then whatever I write would be disingenuous.
I only named it happy meal because it because there are a couple of nuggets in here to chew on, some lines to toy with & a refreshing gulp of some truth that may or may not be hard to swallow.
Here it goes:
“Is there no emancipation from this melanated annihilation from which my enemy’s welcome participation in my mutilation through legal proclamation that authorities carry out with no hesitation as a demonstration to an entire nation that my displacement is a byproduct of the radiation I’m accused of spraying, despite statistics saying that white people kill at a much faster pace?
I’m uncomfortably numb so how can I have a son up under the sun when as soon as he grows up you shoot him for having fun & I bought him that toy so I give a fuck about a pig, let me go get my gun. Super soaker, bebe and laser tag. Only the white man can inflict pain and still be mad. Little Timmy killed a cat, skinned it & shot his sister Suzie with his daddy’s Uzi but won’t ever see jail time but let my child be black & exist with some skittles & juice an nigga its hammer time.
I’ve lost all hope in police because they lack a spine but they’ll Wetzel’s Pretzels my shit like Freddie Gray and it’s all fine. They’re history is laced with fucking up our streets & the government cosigns them murdering & justifies their white supremacist’s beliefs. The holocaust is over but ethnic cleansing been started. The way they know you’ll believe their whitewashed history makes sense now when they call our children retarded.
No use in having your pistol in a safe place, because the law determines when & how you can protect yourself so the intruder has a safe space. I’m East Oakland bred & Hawthorne fed. Been robbed in both cities & watched the assailant get away. Born a bastard from a loving mother whom I’m forced to watch wither away, meanwhile I’m the only man besides her deceased father that can save the day. But I can’t be your Superman because my heart is full of kryptonite so I’m 25 but I been dead inside for years so my head is where my I sleep at night. Can’t be reckless because niggas creep at night so if I lay low hopefully I avoid crips, bloods, thot bitches & homo thugs because I still believe that the Lord may lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take because my little sister won’t be able to function any other way.
Happiness kills me in the dark like foul play but I embrace the fates my way because if I got to hit the highway best believe I’m smoking with my uber driver the whole day. Dear God, soften my heart for the right women but let me be smart enough to see she’s the right one cuz I got faith but if she’s anything but a black woman you know my mama don’t play. Please protect my older sister cuz she feels alone, mostly cuz my bitch ass finds reasons to not consistently pick up the phone. You’d think I’d learn from all the funerals. Grandpa been gone for two numerals.
I don’t have the answers but it feels like my questions are more useful. If I had another chance today, I’d build a better future. Instead I’m stuck in a cesspool. I write this with no shame. I’m the one to blame. A handful of CSUN muthafuckas threw dirt on my name & I used my anger as a cane but it wasn’t sugar or grains. I let the fruits of my labor rot in vain. So now I’m stuck in limbo with no bass, treble or tempo. Not really the love at first sight type so I never open up & I’m quick to let go. I might be insane cuz this school shit I’m ready to leave alone. Life whispering all my failures in my ear while I pass out in its chokehold.”
