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Your mind is the deadliest weapon in your possession.
Your hand the sheath that holds its dangers
Your mouth the chamber its bullets exit,
And your ink
Tears of blood painted red on a listener’s
Once bleach-white canvas of an ear.
How many shots should my mind fire
Before you decide its thoughts are relevant enough to hear?
The war on intellect is brewing in its pot of misconceptions
So I ask the youth now, which side are you on?
I can use my voice to make your insides crumble as an enemy
Or empower my shout to pull you up as an ally
Honestly, the choice is yours
I beg you choose the latter.
So, this
This is an artist’s plea to his unborn child
I pray he or she grows up with their first word as “noâ€
This way I’m sure they will have the right answer to every
Peer pressure constructed question
I bargain with God now to touch and guide his child
Bless them with the street smarts to never pick up a tool
Simply, pick up the tools that will allow you to succeed, child.
The most tragic murder scene was an abandoned brain
Stabbed in the back by a child who was blessed to be bright,
But allowed his dull upbringings to constrain his potential
To the rules of the concrete, a concrete jungle
This is a concrete generation
Where every child claims their heart to be hard as the asphalt
This is our fault, the adult fault for not focusing the picture
Long enough to see we should have hardened your brain,
And cemented your faith in a being higher than our youth
After ditching class to burn an L in rotation
This is a plea to the youth not to roll the conclusion that we all lose.
©Paris “Chi†Butler, “The Pleading of an Artistâ€. 11/17/2012. All Rights Reserved.
