this morning, i woke up.
thinking of the things i’ve done,
just to get by,
just to get high,
just to roll fly.
ends never justify the means, she said
but that’s a lesson learned through tears.
i done some things in my life to get here,
stepped on some faces, broken some hearts, kicked ‘em when they’re down, made ‘em cry.
and it hurts, baby. it hurts.
every single time, i feel a little more numb
and one day, i won’t feel anything.
and that’s when i know it’ll be too late.
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in 4th grade i used to sharpen my pencils and stab the kids sitting next to me until i drew blood.
i’m sorry. i realize that i didn’t like them because they were white and i was frustrated that i was different.
when i was 19, a good friend of mine, my homeboy, decided to steal a car. deep down, i could read all the signs that he was just crying for help, looking for some attention. instead of stepping up and being a real friend, telling him not to risk it and throw his life away, i decided to go along for the ride. he ended up really falling into a downward spiral after that, completely falling apart. i’m sorry.
oh, and i stole his girl too. that was uncool. i’m sorry.
a guy in college, real nice, down to earth friend of a friend, broke his back in a motorcycle accident. he had to wear a full brace. i dug him, but i always thought he was a little pretensious and too quirky. so, i took a permanent marker and wrote all sorts of foul and disgusting phrases all over his brace, things he would not be able to easily wash off. and this was something he had to wear outside of his clothes. i’m sorry.
when i was 18, i thought it would be funny to buy bags of weed and mix it up with as much oregano as i could find. i would then have a whole lot of “weed” to sell to the stupid white kids. i would teach these silly boys how to roll joints, insisting that the herb-like smell meant that the stuff was fresh. then i would rip them off. i’m sorry for making you smoke kitchen herbs, it probably wasn’t the safest thing to do.
in high school, there was this kid who annoyed me so so so much. he had this high-piched voice and he always seemed to interupt my conversations, especially if i was talking to a girl. i knew that he was working on a big, big history project, because he was a nerd like that. and i knew the project meant a lot to him too. so, when he brought it in to turn in, i discretely took it out of the pile from the teacher’s desk, tore it up, and threw it in the garbage. i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have done that. especially now that i’m a teacher, i know how much it meant to you, man.
i got drunk one night and called my girlfriend up on the phone and decided to see how she would react to being dumped. so i dumped her, right then and there, on the phone. i was such a jerk, i remember thinking, hmm . . . so this is how girls act, huh? very interesting. then i went to sleep.
the next morning, i vaguely remembered that i did not have a girlfriend anymore and just went on with my life.
i bumped into her years later at a coffeeshop and we exchanged ackward hellos.
i’m so sorry. i still did not understand how to treat people who showed me love, and i was just so curious as to how girls acted. that was mean and cruel, and it should never have happened.
my boy was going to get married in a couple weeks, and i knew that he wanted to get laid one last time before taking the plunge. so, we were talking to these drunk girls, definately willing, but too young to be evil. one of them was shyly flirting with him. so, i decided it would be fun to shout across the room, “Yo man, how’s the wedding planning coming along?” totally killed any vibe of getting it on that he had going on. i still remember the girls shocked look, “oh. you’re engaged?” i’m sorry man.
actually . . . no, this one i take back. i’m sorry for not being a friend, but in the big picture, i’m happy that i didn’t help you cheat on your fiance. yeah. this one’s a good one.
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boy, that feels a little better.
