©REDInks, 2017. All rights reserved. This poem or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.





WE ARE THE STREETS

Given birth to in a little corner down the south side,
We grew up with little peers down the bad side,
we saw life from a different point of view,
so while we write with broken pencils
does not mean our thoughts are pointless,
we come from a rich heritage of thieves and chiefs,
we collect what is ours and rule what we have.

We've always wanted to be educated
but our goals in life has always been truncated, so we take life as it comes, a day at a time,
while you care about what those kleptomaniacs promised our fathers over 20 years ago,
we focus on what's best to smoke in our h.k's and jungles,
we stopped believing them,
because they only have hands of steal and great lie-ability
but our strength lies in our hustle because we are the streets.

We knew our mistake the very day we made them,
our daughters became pregnant virgins and our sons holy thieves,
we saw the path they followed, but what can we do?,
we already gave them a trail,
when we gave birth to the boys,
our words were only those with book on their heads can use a pen to murder a sword,
they always listened to our voice until they found out how this country aborted conceived dreams,
we felt we should turn to our girls,
remind them that they can make the change if they can zip up,
but the only zip they had, they let it slip down, they joined their brothers in the hostile take over
they were given to change in A. p.c,
they used their fingers to work, so they can be klin and fresh using omo because we are the streets.

The streets isn't devoid of conscience and reason,
I mean we have children who read with candle lights,
we have children who came out top of their class,
but the government paid no attention to their class,
we were too down here, while they were up there,
when we hoped for the best, the thoughts of the lies and pain ran across our chests,
as we have bad eggs so also good ones,
we do not count our eggs before they are hatched,
we still think of our leaders as empty-hens,
filled with unfulfilled promises
they are every where you go,
we continue with our hustle believing in it,
because we are the streets.

People ask who are the streets,
We are those children you look at and insult our dullness,
we dropped out of school into life
when our fathers died of frustration from not collecting their pension.
We are those children who pay our tithes,
unable to go to the schools our church build.
We are those children who run pass the windows of your car shouting
“buy your cold pure water”, “buy your sweet orange”, “buy your sweet mango”...,
but nobody wants to buy into our dreams and visions.
We are those children who eat meat only on harvest Sundays,
and eat chicken on Christmas days.
We are problems that have lingered for long we want to be solved,
It was never meant to be this way,
But as I said what choices are there
We are the streets.

WE ARE THE STREETS.