2010 might have been the year flashlight saved my life

- for the prof crew

& of course i’m talking about the parliament jam
or the version my friends & i reworked that same year
our friend passed away in a bike accident coming from home
a place where kids couldn’t stop catching bullets the summer before
a bit like any other but what was different was the hope in all of my bones
that maybe nothing in me would break before soccer season started
& how that all melted away when my hamstring tore the day before our first game
i couldn’t even see myself in that puddle anymore by the time brother t—our uncle--
started showing signs of ill health & dad started saying
he wasn’t going to live much longer

& i want to say that was the same year auntie had a gun
placed to her temple while a man ransacked
her hostel as she was going about her day back in belize
the same year grandpa passed from heart complications
as he was going about his day back in belize but our friend

she was struck by a car
a good while before any of all of that took place
i opened my phone to a text from another friend asking if i was okay
& it had only been a day or two since the last
time i thought to stop living & that was distance enough to celebrate

so i told him ‘yes’
as i got dressed for band practice then hopped into mike’s car
where we sat in silence for a bit
& i don’t remember what we played over the speakers
but when we got to sam’s house we set up our amps & microphones
quick
as lives can be
​
we ran the parliament jam
i rapped four verses as the homies
played solos in-between
& i don’t remember the words for our song
but i do remember hearing every one of us coming through in that basement
& we were all so loud