The Answer

What do you do when you know you're one person in a sea of millions
But still feel as though that you are the answer
When the cancer in your community
Has never seemed to penetrate your immune system
Trapped on a deserted island with a million people
Who don't speak the same language yet still determined to share your story
Tupac and Carlton Banks trapped in the same body
Trapped in an urban purgatory
Looking for a neighbor to borrow of cup of sugar from
Because Lord knows sometimes we all just need something sweet
Put on a pedestal by people who have never met you
Elders try to live their life through you
Tell you to always be you
But won't let you
And the moment you do anything against the image
People have created of you without knowing anything about you
They forget you
And you become the same as everybody else
Regardless of how many positive feelings
As a direct result of you that they have felt
Ladies, all relationships don't work out
but automatically to them they become just another notch on your belt
And I become just another nigga
And ever since my name's gotten a little bigger
You done heard a couple of things
And I must specialize in making women's heart melt
And there's so much irony in that statement
And it's so much hard to keep the faith when
Time after time I'm approached with that same corny ass line

"Excuse me Prentice, I just want to let you know
I love your poetry and love what you had to say"

And considering the fact that I did more than one poem
I asked her which one and she says

"Which one?
Oh, um I kind of forget what you say
I've been drinking
But anyway"

Yeah, anyway
I guess she thought I was in it for the ass
Not realizing that my life extends way beyond this mic
And there may be a possibility
That gaining insight on me does not come from the inside of my bedsheets
But, oh
I'm not supposed to talk like that, I'm just a Poet
Those situations are reserved from R&B acts
Athletes and MC's
But truth be told whether you or I like it or not
This is my reality without the camera
I am the man driving the wrong way down a one-way
Shaving against the grain
Trying to stay sane in the city that feels more like an asylum
Where the pigs are the doctors and the people are the patients
But now the doctors have tasers and no patience for their people
So they dope them up
Hispanics in LA have to keep papers in their back pockets
So they rope them up and ship them out
But we don't care, all we care about is TikTok and Twitter
Doped us up
Saw an opportunity and extorted it
And I'm told that I'm wrong for saying about Obama
That they took a black man
Mixed him with a lot of lies
A dash of truth
Present him in a pretty little package with $20,000 suits
To disguise the American cocaine and had us snort it
But they say what's done in darkness always comes to light
Which is exactly why I write in the darkness of the night
Staring into the black pepper sky with the salty colored lights
Hoping it'll season these words to make things taste a little bit better
Because lately life hasn't been seeming too fair
And it's all starting to mess with me
And I try to do right when I write
But it seems like people keep testing me

They're trying to take pieces of my soul
And I haven't been feeling too whole
So I turn on my phone and look at my children
So I can still see the best of me
And I remind myself that stress is gonna come
On this journey to excellence and so will haters
Especially when greatness is a part of your destiny
And sometimes people are going to see only what they want to see
And not take the time to get to know the rest of me
But that's human nature and that's exactly what people do
So what do you do when you know that you're one person in a sea of millions
But still feel as though that you are the answer?

You simply be that answer
You simply
Be you