The Nats about to win the world series so we champ.
Ugly with the drip like we was ever into baseball.
My brother used to get free tickets from his job and take
me to games. I held a hot dog and joined every chant.
watching, and screaming I began to understand the
the art of the steal. We got away with all of this joy
and now we stuck on stupid. Mystics already got the dub
so we champ. Ain’t even trip over metro fare so we champ.
Aiden got a scholarship and we alive to psyce it,
so we champ. Some kind of ugly. Some kind of foul.
Leaning over in my lyft talking bout we gon cuff em
and my driver got that sulfur smirk. It’s flu season and
we something sick. It’s October and we something spooky.
Don’t ask how we got this drip, it’s ugly. I said we and meant
Us, just a bunch of niggas who can’t act right cause god act
up but dark skin glow under blue light and it’s harvest season.
New moon out and so are we.
: : :
And when they come for us
It’ll just be us out here sitting on our cars
with no shirts and clean socks spitting
laughter like it might eat us from the inside
Or fuck you thought this was we only
afraid of what’s on our inside just like you
A bullet might just open up a door for two
more of us to spill through
We out here with a thousand heads
We out here with a thousand heads
We out here with straight backs and hair
made of fire we out here with twists and
hair made of smoke sometimes there
ain’t no hair on our head I think to
call it a desert but you might never drink
again i’m still thinking
I’m still remembering what’s left of us
Kenneth Carroll III wants to be the very best, like no one ever was. Poetry is his best bet, and writing is his heart. He has traveled across the land performing far and wide. He believes his art can change the world with the power that’s inside. Born and raised in Washington, DC. Carroll served as the 2017 DC Youth Poet Laureate, and was the 2017 DC Youth Slam Team Grand Slam Champion. His short-collection of poetry, Making It Home, was published in 2018 by Penmanship Books. He is a Sarah Lawrence fellow and recipient of Thomas Lux scholarship in 2019. Carroll host’s, performs, and teaches around the DMV. His love for pancakes is only rivaled by the love for his home and the people living in it. His writing is an expression of that love.