By Daniel Paiz

NaPoWriMo is a time to continuously challenge yourself and try out new ideas and whatnot. Something new can be sparked and it works. Other times, it’s a good effort that didn’t pan out. It is tough to say which one is about to happen, but frankly this idea has me a little bit excited.

For whatever reason, DaBaby’s ROCKSTAR has been bouncing around my head. The guitar-led earworm can get into your skull and reverberate for some time, even when it’s played a few times. So, it led me down a rabbit-hole of different reactions videos. That’s because, while many people enjoy the video and appreciate the message delivered in both the video and the lyrics, there’s still not a whole lot said about the content of the song.

Perhaps this effort will be the same. I’d like to think that’s not going to be the case, though.

Poet Star

It’s understandable people react to their surroundings.

You can’t fully fault those turning to means earned differently,

cycles of violence best feed themselves.

Forget after school programs that start at 12,

Two year old’s witness realities adults can’t comprehend,

who then pretend such trauma can be polished,

with cars and properties,

despite detriment of dreams smothered

until like the wrong skin tone on the ground

cease.

You wonder why people wish police,

after hours situations of pain and fornication,

because desperation has led them down a path

of working what similarly-aged people never did;

despite stating they “never got a handout” or

“pulled themselves up by their bootstraps“,

somehow, even though

how many of us

are wearing bootstraps,

and who exactly among those,

inheriting vast fortunes

and watching generational wealth

build itself prior to

any work being done, even pulled anything on their own?

Real estate shouldn’t be doing so well in this country

with all of these glass houses littering neighborhoods.

Imagine the shards of lives shattering despite

some moral superiority falsehood,

making said sayer succumb swiftly

to echo chambers,

that will bury them sooner

than expected life expectancy.

Not even reverse mortgages

can save such generational wealth suffocation.

float about until will to live is out,

you wonder why kids and grandparents toil about,

but then won’t talk to either for fear of losing clout,

doubt will undo what prior folks have made,

it’s effort to unite instead of only paper chase,

money means nothing when your soul’s escaped.

no foreign embassies will get to see me,

can’t afford to drink water in this drought,

real life ones knows this isn’t easy,

but avoiding pitfalls is the route.