he wants to become a senator
so that he can stop the corruption up top
but making it past this big sand box of a jungle
that they call the hood

is something that he will never be able to accomplish
that's what his teachers tell him
but he can't hear them
because the heavy tunes of his Gil Scott Heron albums drown them out

and he be getting uplifted
when he visits the library
feeding his hunger for knowledge
and becoming steadfast on his future
because college is an option

and though being black and below the poverty line in America
might give him two strikes
there's still time to redeem himself before he gets his third
and he ain't trying to be barely making it, living pay check to pay check
or government checkin it on the 1st, 3rd, & 15th for the rest of his life

he's still a virgin
so young girls be eye'n him
but he doesn't have time for them and their babies
he's just a baby
trying to become a man
and he can't and don't want to be nobody's daddy
not right now, not just yet

images of a big house, with plush green grass adorning the yard
enclosed by a white picket fence
crowd his mind
he wants to grow old with some security
we talkin social security, mutual funds, stocks and bonds
not 65 years old walkin around talkin about he needs some weed
so he can escape it all
that's nonsense

he's going to be 20+ odd years older than his children
and 40+ older than his grandchildren
oh he wants to take life back to the good ol days
prior to the crack epidemic that swept and molded his neighborhood
I mean murdered this neighborhood
removed the neighbor and left hood to stand on its own

but how long will it stand?
he's afraid that gentrification will
shatter his residence
push him back further into a darker corner of the city
making it even harder for him to see daylight

but as long as he be toting those Glenco and Prentice Hall textbooks
alongside "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen
while singing "we were scholars long before colleges"
and not getting caught up in that gang shit
he'll make it

but let's just pray that a stray bullet don't "off" him
before his destiny manifests
because then he'll just be another lost soul that's a victim of his surroundings
PLEASE STOP THE VIOLENCE!