A Man Compromised

From birth

Since childhood

There's never been a time good

Crack baby

Never knew the parents

Black maybe

Or Spanish

Skin darker, Almost Mocha,

Features average

Mixed in with all the orphans

His upbringing

Amorphous

No focus

Problems arise

And left to fester

No soul behind his eyes

Why he do that to Lester

Get him out of here

He's old enough

Toss him

The little asshole

13 and in the streets

There's pain and a can of Alpo

There's also the po-po

By now,

They know his M-O

And N O

He doesn't wanna go to jail

That's detrimental

He adapts quickly

Move to consolidate his cash, tricky

Panhandling

Give it up to him tho

The mans handling

His B-I

And despite odds

Grows up

And moves forward

He also moves toward

Job, wife, house, three kids

What he did

Was overcome

By all accounts

He made it

But deep inside

He cries

There was hell to pay

And he paid it

(Hook)

Life

A man

The two are at odds

Its hard

The struggle

Rips thru the facade

The pain

The problems

They poke and they prod

He just wants to stand strong

And be a man

Time falters

Breezing thru

Mind altered

His kids disown him

Saw thru the blinders

Reminders of old

And then they told him

Broke thru the shell

Amidst

The bells

And the whistles

They scold him

Relinquish your grasp

On the last of the

Memories

You're holding

Ahhhhh

You can breathe now

Please leave now

Please see how

You can fix

What is lost

And bereaved now

What you've callously tossed

Please retrieve now

You can try to repair

Thru a teary eyed stare

When you're old an senile

At that

With a awakening

He adjusts his hat

Turns once more

Before the cold wind creeps down his back

A single tear

Soon disappears

Skin wrinkled from the years

And he frowns

Walks his way down

With the weight of the world pressing

No direction

360 degree turn

Expressing

Single thought recurring

Slides it's way inside

Distressing

Progression stops

Now it's more about regression

A lesson

No

One of life's imperfections