I wrote this because mental health is a real thing.
I wrote this because mental health is a real thing. And sometimes it gets lost in the male role belief system. We’re not supposed to feel our feelings or we’re supposed to stuff everything inside instead of just being who we are and who we’re supposed to be. That’s where this one comes from.
I am Broken
I am broken.ย
For years I was open to abuse fromย
people needing ego strokingย
that berated my need to be outspoken.ย
Instead of support,ย
those who told me they loved me filed reportsย
that lied to me when they sold me.ย
Meanwhile, while I was in court,ย
where I boldly tried to get home,ย
I was out of sorts, angry and lonely.ย
Some days, I stare at my shards, gathering dust.ย
The floor is so hard.ย
In too many ways I’m scarred,ย
so much so it feels like happy days just aren’t in the cards.ย
For sports slaveholders crave to fold me in my kennel,ย
I soldier through hunger pains made bolder by my soft touch,ย
that got me boiling in life’s kettle with no one to hold me.ย
Then I get mail from people I love and trustย
and mix their gold words with hope lacquer and pick my pieces up.ย
Kintsugi is the art of self-repair, finding beauty in being broken.ย
My rhymes are like gold and glue,ย
and despair when despair cracks my brain open.ย
Human sun rays come through and fix emotional wear and tear.ย
I can truly say life when sharedย
is gonna be okay with supportย
from wonderful people who care.ย
So I fill up journals and notebooks with lyricsย
showcasing the vicissitudes of my spirit.ย
I bring it to your chest, just a little.ย
Granddad told Mesroย
take no wooden nickels.ย
My flow’s a ripple of self-help.ย
Do you get that?ย
I spit facts on tracks that felt like slip mats.ย
Get back.ย
I’m insecure about personal space from whereย
hermits make face.ย
I’m a terminal case.ย
I keep pain sitting in the fire inspiredย
by introspective fires,ย
vitalizing mic wires.ย
Some days I roll slow, no air in my tires,ย
getting tired of flatterers, devourers, and liars,ย
surrounded by social vermin and colonizers.ย
They forget us on purpose, intentional Alzheimer’s.ย
I grip mics like pliers and reply with rhyme timers,ย
medicate with side effects, like my name was Pfizer.ย
Worked through anger management on the microphoneย
and frustrated when writers recited my tones.ย
I worked through tones of styles when I racked these domes identical.ย
My battles are attacks of the clones,ย
and I turned self-help into landscapes on paper,ย
fueled by blood, gasoline, and dream capers.ย
So when I’m not okay, I put pens to mind and scribed lifetimesย
on college-ruled lines.ย
It all started when I was seven or so.ย
Mom’s left pops with nowhere to go.ย
Everything I asked for, she said no,ย
slapped me in the face like, what are you crying for?ย
Back and forth between parents with problems,ย
using trial and error just to solve them.ย
I’m in the projects with a 38 revolver,ย
passed off to family members, black to father,ย
police looking at me like I’m their next caller,ย
bullied at school for wanting to be an author.ย
Started rapping when my pain got hard to swallow.ย
Battles with dumbasses got me feeling hollow.ย
So I turned to the pioneers and my few peers.ย
Never lived in one spot longer than a few years.ย
Pawned off till I was too grown to stay home,ย
that was about 13, by 17 all alone.ย
Jumped off a bridge when I came home discharged.ย
From the Navy to duck an assault charge,ย
and called it a weed beef. My life’s hardย
because I never learned how to clean up my shards.ย
And came to grips with no kids in my cards.ย
Foreseeing I haven’t given up on my disc, my discards,ย
know what I mean?ย
But I gotta be prepared for the life I can’t see.ย
Might not live long enough to be a parolee.
