Loops

They want a specific incident that doesn’t reoccur

From a kid whose life is a J Dilla loop

Plus, my memory fails me more than my teachers do

I’m living one beat at a time, every line and rhyme

Basketball, video games, hip-hop:

Thought I was unique at first

I used to blast A$AP Rocky until the speakers hurt

Turns out there were millions like me

Now let me take a look down my life’s street

Circa 6th grade, before the mixtapes and a big change

I’d like to take it back to way simpler ways

I spent my days at the YMCA and came home to play 2K

Followed by a Jay-Z soundtrack, Cole & Kanye the next day

I used to dream of the NBA, never dreamed of an MBA

I know a lotta kids around my age group could say the same

I used to sleep with a basketball

Before the knees hurt, growing pains, now I’m a fathom tall

The Osgood-Schlatters slaughtered all good athletic dreams

They weren’t meant to be more than adolescent fantasies

I got home on Friday nights, my legs aching

Hopped on the PlayStation 4, my friends waiting

Then I became a couch-warmer instead of playing

It’s easy to stay at home without motivation

Combine that with a tad of asthma

And interest in rap stanzas

It’s safe to say I found a different type of dedication

Notes:

This piece is included in Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School, edited by Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Peter Kahn, and Dan Sullivan. Published by Penguin Workshop. All poems are copyright of their respective authors.

Source: Poetry (December 2021)