By Toya Y. Williams
Little boy caught between blocks of past and present before freedom
Mommies not here anymore she ran for her first love….first love of that needle in her arm
Daddies don’t care anymore he is behind that war line
And I am a warrior now with these bullets at six
Parents sold me to the slave master on the block
I must work to survive
Ancestor plowed the field I plow their minds
At six before you a new hustle
Rappers try to capture my soul in words
Words don’t mean nothing here
Because parent don’t mean anything here
Before this hell I am free in my mind
Spelling and math don’t mean nothing here
Slave on the block
Once I make something out of nothing daddy will return
Mommies still is with her first love, first love
And I am one of a million right under the flag
Under the ground, slave on the block
Nothing is the only word I learned from master here on the block
Sold by my mother to this life, this life is all I got
Sunlight creeps in above 4:00 cause that’s what my brother says
I claim him cause he three and sick with AIDS they tell me he will die
His parents left him for their first love
Master says we are safe from the man next door who loves children to death
I work the block my brother works in the store
I make more but he is related to master
Brother can read at three, I think he is three he is smaller I am bigger
I work hard on the block, real hard beyond my age
I hustle, what ever that means, I hustle and you think I am a juvenile
I am a man at six with the world before me
Shhhh!! Quiet don’t talk master is coming I must go to bed.
Toya Y. Williams is a final year student at Virginia Wesleyan College, Virginia Beach, USA. She was awarded a Presidential and White House Silver medal for Community Services in 2005 and is a 2006 Poetry Ambassador for the United States.
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