#slap box

They boys  They play fight and slap box  Use foul language and push boundaries  Tell mama jokes 

Get defensive when they go too far  Them boys they often go too far 

Trying to prove themselves  As men that they aren't yet  Sex self educated  Single parent raised 

They boys  Often on the same wrong road as their brothers  Mothers cry for them 

They boys far from home and freedom  Freedom got them detained  No one restrained them boys  So they are here  Teaching me about the hood  We escaped from 

I gave my mother something extra  On mothers day  In memory of these boys I teach  Trying to reach and extract them  Their mentality reaches my tear ducts Faces feature in my prayers 

They just boys like I was once  I hope they become better men than I am now Teaching poetry is often halted  When I question  Why are you here?  How long?  How does this feel?

Bars can't hold their dreams I give paper  Teach them how to write  Others how to spell simple words  No, "girl" is spelled with an "I" not a "u"

Some too gangster to ask  Or write emotions  So they draw I wonder if they draw what they hear  If that is the case I hope they are listening  I got a story to tell  Not just a lesson to teach. 

Not a preacher but this is spiritual  Parables Divinity in hood abstracts  Them boys asked me to write about them  I didn't know where to start  Now I don't know where to end 

See I teach poetry in a detention camp for boys  Twice a week I see them Happy to see them smiling at least when I come  Saddened I see them smiling  Hear them joking  About doing the same thing  That got them boys here  When they get out 

Really just saddened I see them at all  Bars are not the place For boys or animals  I never go to the zoo anymore  One of the boys said they are animals I refuted him  Saddened that i even had to