Waking up on playgrounds 
to children shouting.
Shaving for job interviews
in water fountains. 
Bird baths 
then wearing 
the same dirty clothes.
Put off for weeks!
I’m a stinky danger, yo!

To my family and friends, 
I’m a stranger, though.
I see how they watch me. 
That’s the way it goes!
They want me to kowtow
and still put me out. 
Immature and selfish
so I went the stupid route!

You wanna talk about survival?
I’ll give you the real.
Couldn’t keep a job,
thought I had to
rob and steal. 
Packing steel 
stalking ATMs and restaurants.
Doing my homework 
in a concrete box. 

Tried to keep up with fashion 
but I couldn’t afford it. 
Learn to fight 
because I got bullied
and couldn’t ignore it.
Rage from mad trauma
but I couldn’t explore it. 

Mass shootings 
in the ghetto 
are never reported.
Pre-teens molested 
and got babies aborted.
Crack hit
and politicians supported
eating generic food 
while addicts
smoke and snorted,
and life in the hood
got progress thwarted.

Mesro was born
broke and provoked.
Grew up where 
“get rich quick”
is no joke.
Exiled from home by
belt straps and crack smoke. 
The only people 
I see rich
all sell dope
or own teams of 
broke people like me.
My folks
know peanut butter 
in a can 
makes you choke. 
I sliced cheese 
with butcher knives
while I wrote
rhymes over
generic cereal
closed with rubberbands 
and free lunch 
from lunch lady oven pans
full of bologna,
grown potatoes, and Spam 
mixed with old veggies 
in trash cans 
served with 
complete pancake mix 
and fish sticks. 
Food banks and cheese lines. 
Life has to be better than this.

All I ever wanted 
was a place
to call my own: 
a wife, kids, 
good job, car,
and a home.
But hope dies fast 
and dreams
don’t last at all.
Told my counsellor
I love science,
he gave me a basketball.
Such unmitigated gall! 

You wanna talk about survival?
Let me dig in the crates:
Loaves and Fishes
serves Thanksgiving 
on paper plates.
Sleeping under cars 
with oil stains 
near my face
because Rain Bird sprinklers 
keep the kid awake.

Human Sun rocks 
when it’s time to 
Blo Spotz, 
so I pulled out 
all the stops, 
pulled out my Glock
and put it to work 
like I was on a 
Cal OSHA clock!

I made
well-to-dos 
see my pain,
feel my plight 
ducking police lights
and taking flight 
at all hours of the night
and in broad daylight
just to get right. 
Life gets so trife
it’s like 
strife is my home, 
stepped on by all types. 

I lived
on the bottom rung 
in these streets, 
so I packed heat 
ready to shoot 
bullets in fleets.
My peeps
act like I’m nothing
and just walk past.
Beef with gangbangers
got me ready to blast.

I got caught
out there
greener than chloroplasts
with envy and inexperience. 
It’s all bad!

I kicked in doors,
broke windows, 
pulled licks,
prostituted myself quick 
just to get chips,
just to get a meal to eat 
and somewhere to sleep,
so I creep 
with nowhere to go,
nothing the keep. 
Counting bullets 
and targets 
instead of sheep.

Been left on 
the corner to bleed,
Going for dolo, 
to fulfill basic needs.
Odd jobs
and school semesters
trying to succeed.
Another generation 
of a dying breed.

The wild 
ain’t the only place 
with a food chain.
I spit lyrical quatrains
robbing people on trains. 
No dopefiend
brain tendencies to explain
I just wanna fill my belly 
and stay dry 
when it rains 
with nerve to search
for relevance.
I represent
out in the cold…
Talk about 
Hip Hop elements…