forever young...

walking down the street listening to jay-z's "forever young" the other day had me feeling pretty fucking emotional...some of the melody and lyrics got to me...i started to tremble, body started sweating and suddenly i found myself on a bench, holding my head in my hands, eyes starting to water, feeling the breeze blowing and cooling the sweat on my shirt, tired, exhausted and empty...not that i know what it's like to "live life like a video... as pretty girls... hop their pretty asses up on the hood of that pretty ass car..." as jay-z would say, but the sentiment behind it had me wondering what happened to me between here and there... i recall being a young cat, full of anger and frustration at not knowing what it was like to go into a store and buy whatever i wanted, but i knew how to walk the streets and have folks act like i wanted... i recall watching eric b & rakim videos, imitating big daddy kane's swagger in my boy's project hallways... i used to walk through harvard square looking at all the "smart kids" go to and fro, and while i headed back home i found myself wondering what it was like in their 2 parent house...i remember passing 40's with cats after hearing about another friend either getting shot, locked up, or ending up in the hospital after some foolishness... i recall standing in the middle of roxbury in the rain letting the drops hide the tears when i realized that making a million was never going to happen for me on these streets, that i no longer wanted to see expecting mothers smoking crack, that i didn't want to smack anyone for respect anymore, that i simply wanted to disappear into the pages of the elven novels that i used to read while in the library while i was cutting school... if only, if only... "if only" is what i would pray under my breath as i went to sleep, trying to cloud out hearing my mother whisper to me under her wine laden breath, "you're a bastard just like your father..." ...life like a video, yeah, i used to fall asleep to the fantasy that i was one of the stars in "16 candles" or "the breakfast club" or "the goonies" where all the misfits and cool kids found common ground and the musical soundtrack was always so gosh-darn-funky... then of course i woke up and found myself walking the streets watching my back and ready to do whatever to whom-ever as the dope-fiends ran to and fro and i found ways to let out my frustrations... do we want to live forever, forever young... yeah living forever, living young forever... cause no one told me what it would be like to be an adult... all i ever heard was some shit my mother used to tell me as i could smell the liquor (and i can't blame her, i woulda drank too if i had to have lived her life...) "boy you JUST WAIT!!! you JUST WAIT!!!" and all i could think was, "i aint waiting for SHIT!!" ...i wasn't going to grow up, i wasn't going to become those hollowed out shells of adults i saw, not one of them that looked like me ever seemed to amount to shit, ever seemed to be happy, ever seemed to be less than beaten... but me, me and my homies, the young cats, we were living, we drank all night, fought all evening, walked when and were we wanted, drove cars that banged soooo fast that it rattled shop windows, there were times when even the cops rode by and had a double-take with the look of "respect" in their eyes...that is, just before they circled the block and hopped out on our asses...naw not me, i wasn't waiting for shit... god never answered my prayers, never had me waking up to new clothes, to a mother that didn't blame me for my father's mistakes, to a city that didn't call the police on me or follow me around the store as i simply wanted to sniff "new clothes" (i STILL love the smell of new clothes!!!), to a life where i felt worthy and didn't always wonder, "what does it feel like to die?"...naww i wasn't waiting, i waited every morning and then i decided that i was going to live forever young... funny, life never turns out the way you plan it... fuck you jay-z

*hitting the repeat button on the ipod*

(the cats in the pic aren't any of my boston cats...but the sentiment is still the same...)