Thoughts Of A Black Guy

Waves don’t die they they multiply They add subtract and divide Unpredictable in the ways they flow You’ll never know which they’ll go They take you high then take you low They take you fast then take you slow Take you east to west or north to south Can swallow you whole or spit you out When calm there’s nothing more relaxing But when wild there’s nothing more taxing The perfect mix of peace and violence Plus the perfect mix of noise and silence Creates the atmosphere for death and life To be able to coexist without causing strife Between its visitors and its inhabitants Washing to shore the oceans elements From ripping tides big and small That become roaring waves short and tall No matter what’s in the way they won’t stall They are everlasting encompassing all

I sleep all day because I write all night Listening to K.Dot we gone be all right I’m drowning out demons tryna take my soul Devil been schemin on it since I was 8 years old 13 years later and he ain’t gave up yet They in hell right now taking up bets Like “today is the day Satan I can just feel it” That soul is for the taking I know I’m gone steal it. I don’t believe you why do you think that’s it’s worth chasing Cuz it’ll be easy he just joined a frat I heard they all Mason’s Like the illuminati? Yeah sacrificing human bodies I bet he would do anything to get a new Bugatti He stopped listening to Gospel now he listen to yo gotti And he moved away from home so he feel like he has nobody To trust and and confide, yeah his brothas they gone ride But they busy balancing they lives on they heads like steak knives So it’s only a matter of time before we get him by his lonely He claim he got faith in God but I think that he’s a phony He ain’t been to a church service since last Easter Don’t even know that the church dun got a new preacher. I’m telling you we got him right where we want Satan I’m promise you that soul of his is ours for the taking

You demons doin a lot of talking but ain’t doin a lot of walking Unlike my man Jesus Christ, that man is something nice Ever since he died on the cross Jesus been the boss Even when I’m lost in the sauce he never let me take a loss Without learning a lesson I know he just be testing Right after I’m stressing he hook me up with some blessings. And when I’m not in church I know my mama praying for me Therefore I’m not worried at all that you preying on me So you gone have to do a whole lot mo’ if you tryna get my soul And I gotta let you know please don’t talk about my bros Or my bruhz or my cuhz or any of my homies Just because you preying on me don’t mean that you know me. God knows me more than I know myself He sent me to the 614 to know myself Once you know thyself you can grow thyself This is for those who know how I felt Up all night cuz them demons won’t stop stalking In your head every night they wont stop talking When you feel like you soul is in danger Because you and God used to be close now y'all strangers You don’t have to worry like I did up all night Just know that everything is gonna be all right

I wonder if I give back this degree Will it make things how they used to be ? I thought adulthood was so sublime Despised going to school full time Now I would do anything to work part time Because that 9-5 is more like hard time When you punch that time clock everyday Punchin you back harder than a heavyweight Life comes at you faster than the speed of light I looked around and realized that I need a wife Cuz all my friends are getting married left and right People on LinkedIn selling me insurance for my life Sallie Mae already want her dough But I just graduated 3 months ago And here I thought that I ran off on the plug twice But my student loan interest rate multiplied thrice I’m tired of calling mommy before every single thing I do But I don’t know what to do with this letter that says past due I swore when I was a kid adulthood didn’t look so blue Now the words “Never grow up” never sounded so true If I knew it would be like this today I would’ve appreciated yesterday I ask again if I give my degree back can all my problems go away

Young man I see you’re angry at the world and yes I understand

You see boys that look like you die every day with no reprimand

Humble beginnings in slavery make you feel like to have to be “the man”

You’re left to figure this out all alone because you don’t have a plan

Because the man with whom you share DNA strands

Got your moms pregnant, then he got up and ran

So you’re raised by a person who has no clue what it feels like to be you

Except that she shares the same hue but your obstacles are still askew

She’s done everything she could but she still can’t reach you

It’s only so much your single mother raising you can teach you

So what you feel you’re lacking you go looking for in the street

Winding up under the wing of the first successful person you meet

Usually someone making their means by breaking the rules

But all you see is fast women, fast cars, and breathtaking jewels

And you need all those things like Malcolm X, by any means necessary

So getting paid is your only motivation, everything else secondary

Especially education can’t blame you, ever since segregation

All I’ve seen in black schools is gentrification and degradation

History classes whitewashed more than the staffs who teach them

Who have good intentions for the students but will never reach them

I understand young man, why you so mad all the time

Principals suspend you at the drop of a dime

Don’t bat an eye when they see you overcrowding jails

They’re too busy embezzling money from school bake sales

Money that’s supposed to fund programs that keep you outta trouble

And into college but I told you up above how life already burst that bubble

Believe me young man I know your pain, I too used to be an angry black boy

But that’s exactly what they want you to be so instead give em black boy joy

Let’s turn scowls into smiles, turn bags of drugs into bags of books

Respectfully decline when they desire violence that’ll have em shook

I beg you, don’t to take this advice lightly or better yet for granted

For the joyful black man is the most feared man on this planet

I just want to live like you While I still be me Do what you do Live life free Go to good schools Get a decent paying job I want cops to follow rules A mom that won’t sob Cuz she ain’t got no bread And her daughter got raped, Her only son is dead Right before he escaped, From the hood you know nothing about Because you live in a place with no worries While I worry about how I’m gonna get out Of this place where bullets fall like flurries Of snow, white as the privilege you possess That helps you fly while I barely get by I feel like there’s a scarlet letter on my chest That will never go away until I die Because color holds no place in God’s house So why is it so important on Earth I asked God and he was as quiet as a mouse I had no answer too, for what it’s worth.

8 years ago we elected our first President outside of a white male, America still wasn’t great. 50 years ago we gave civil rights to black men and white women, America still wasn’t great. 140 years ago we made slavery illegal, America still wasn’t great. 210 years ago we doubled our size with the Louisiana purchase, America still wasn’t great. 220 years ago we made the cotton gin and fueled the Industrial Revolution, America still wasn’t great. 240 years ago we wrote the Declaration of Independence and won our freedom from England, America still wasn’t great. 325 years ago we landed on Plymouth Rock, America still wasn’t great. 520 years ago Christopher Columbus arrived and called the Natives, Indians, America still wasn’t great. 521 years ago the natives lived in peace, America was great. Let’s Make America Great Again.

Back in the day I was plottin in class on the NBA Catch me today I’m plottin in class on my MBA. Prayed to Jah he would take I to the NFL He said nah we should just make IVFL Take over the Midwest name it the Fourth Coast And don’t stop until The Lane reigns in your coast So now we treating business like we playing sports We going hard in the office like we was on the courts We say fuck copping a beam, rather have 3 or Fo’ Having million dolla dreams but never sleeping tho’ If you not rich brotha then you shouldn’t be in bed We gotta work twice as hard just to get ahead The Man doing his best to keep us down he been schemin To keep us from being the man calling shots, Willie Beamen Capitalism takin us back to modern day enslavement Or to the sixties with black bodies layin on the pavement Mama said I can be anything even like Obama Now she’s scared that I’m gonna end up like Osama What to do when you can’t trust those meant to protect you Or when your classmates teachers and coaches don’t get you ‘Cuz they don’t understand the struggle of a young black (fe)male Being set up in a system that’s set up for us to fail The only way to pass through is play ball or kick a rap If plan A and B fall through then plan C’s the trap. That’s where Fourth Lane comes through and turns the table The Renaissance comin soon but it won’t be on cable Turn down those reality shows with made up plots and thots covered in make up Turn up with poetry and prose and read a plot on how to get your cake up The time is now black people we gotta get up out those chains And into the winners circle that’s why it’s called the Fourth Lane If nobody did it yet why can’t we be the pioneers You were born in the hood why would you wanna die in here ?

To stressed to go to sleep To depressed to wake up So I stay up all night And lay in bed all day I’m defeated before I’m challenged Depleted right after recuperating I lose when I win And win when I lose Depression is a stain That I can’t clean off my brain Worry falls on me like rain While problems grow like grain On a farm infested with stress In a state that won’t digress From feeling like a bottom dweller So my hearts colder than a cellar Bad thoughts are the prequel Depression is the sequel Playing like a marathon All day like a DJ’s favorite song Even after a million goods days That bad feeling will never go away.

I’ll start writing again when I have some time to myself I’ll start when schools out I’ll start when I get some time off of work I’ll start writing when I’m in the mood I’ll start when I catch up on sleep I’ll start right after I get somethin to eat I’ll start when I’m happier I’ll start after I read a good book I’ll start after I watch a good movie I’ll start after I meet some interesting people I’ll start writing after I get some confidence I’ll start after I achieve some goals I’ll start writing in the morning after I go out I’ll start writing after church I’ll start writing when I get some inspiration No you’ll start when you stop making excuses And you face this self-diagnosed writer’s block

I love you and hate you at the very same time. Some days you make me feel like gold, sometimes like slime You make good days better and bad days a little more bearable. But you can ruin my good days and make bad ones more terrible Some times I feel like I can spend all my days with you Until you piss me off and I don’t have anything to say to you You’re the only person besides me who can control how I feel Even though I claim to have skin as tough as steel You know how to get under it at your will But just right before you go in for the kill You build me back up like no one else can And make me feel like the motherfuckin man Which is why I like you so much I suppose Cuz you always keep a brotha on his toes Got me up and down like a roller coaster instantaneously Making me crazy, causing my love and hate simultaneously

There’s no doubt in my mind that the masters of art are women They are the true definition of making lemonade from lemons Beyoncé turned her relationship problems into a platinum album She announced she was pregnant and the whole world went stagnant Miss Walker said it best when she said women were the best Poets and everyone knows it Don’t even try to open that do’ might as well close it Ain’t no debatin That womens is the best at paintin It ain’t too hard when your body is your practice piece You put a little makeup on your face now you look like a masterpiece Your mind is full of culture while your body resembles a sculpture When God made women, it was the very beginning of art Every piece he chiseled was with precision, from the very start He gave the singers the grace to hit notes sharper than bee stingers And women musicians must got magic in their lungs and their fingers ‘Cuz when them instruments they play and then hips start to sway My mind ain’t got no say I just hope you don’t come my way I know I don’t stand a chance Tryna keep up with you while you dance I think one day we’ll learn eventually That anything you give a woman she makes better exponentially They make homes outta houses and feasts outta harvests Whether they’re making poems or designing houses they make the best artists

I asked God why did you make me black He said the same reason that the United States was built on your back So whenever white people say that you’re lazy you can just laugh Because you have to work twice as hard just to get half Even if you’re half black half white you don’t get half their privileges That they pillaged from us half a century ago from our villages It’s funny the same place that they picked apart like vultures Is the same place that they claimed lacked culture Like the moors ain’t teach them what we today call science Like before they came we wasn’t doing just fine Then I asked God if all of this is true of Africa Then why did you let these outsiders traffic us He told me because their nations would be nothing without you I’m talking America France England Brazil and Canada too. I mean why would they try so hard to enslave us It must be because everything we do resembles greatness The same women they call welfare queens Are the same women they enslaved to cook and clean Raise your kids while they still raised their own And they have the nerve to call our house a broken home. Like the war on drugs being the new slavery don’t mean shit Like the pre school to prison pipeline don’t exist I asked God why do you let them defame us with these lies He told me because like Maya Angelou you shall still rise Even though black women are treated the worst When it comes to getting an education they rank first. We fought against the elements went from slaves to presidents When they tried to make jail cells our permanent residence I told God I hear you but when it comes to credit we still don’t get it He replied I’m gonna tell you this one time so don’t you forget it You are the very first people the chosen ones Straight from the powers that be you are a hole in one A slam dunk a touchdown ain’t nothin better than being brown The baddest peoples to touch the ground that’s why they try to keep you down They hate you cuz they ain’t you That’s why they act like vultures and re appropriate our culture Just know that you being black was a gift that was heaven sent Tan their Skin because they can’t steal melanin Black culture is a billion dollar industry They just don’t wanna credit your artistry From hip hop, to duttty wine, to black twitter feeds They taking all the harvests while you plant all the seeds. Everybody wants to be black until that oppression kicks in But I need you to remember this before that depression kicks in When it comes to questioning the ways of the powers that be It’s not always about what you are but what you are about to be So before you go cursing the color God gave you Remember being black is the shit that’s why he made you- M4hl IV

I think it’s time we recognize that black folk get sad from time to time No it’s not “the blues” that’s depression eating at your mind Mental illness ain’t just for rich white people to have an excuse for being crazy You need to take yo scary ass to a doctor and stop being lazy And worried that something dark from the past won’t be so hazy Black people believe in voodo recipes but not science that shit amaze me No you’re not “in one of your moods” you gotta a mood disorder Mood swings everyday ain’t normal fam, you might be bipolar. I’m not being facetious I just want y'all to get treated Because like any disease mental illness can be defeated The first step is acknowledging it the next step is seeing a shrink Now I know when you hear the word doctor what you start to think Tuskegee Syphillis experiment and many other tragedies I’m not asking you to turn a blind eye to these casualties Find a good doctor that you you can trust Maybe a doctor who’s skin looks just like us