Dream Deferred

Anthony lived in the suburbs And drove in to public school in the gutter Ever since an infant, he felt a little different Felt a little distant, till he felt the rhythm Through the crates he found the hip hop classics Wu Tang, Illmatic, Ready to Die, Tragic He spun the vinyl and listened through the static His mom came knocking he hid em in the attic He fell in love with the way the words and beats Would perfectly adjust his brain’s circuitry One night he opened up a diary Where he acquired the firey flows but kept it quietly He kept his verses beached like hasslehoff Till one day there was a school wide talent off He performed under the alias sir rap a lot But the fans wrote him off as another Asher Roth They called him cracker, wanna be, wigger As the whole room got suddenly bigger And All the criticsm was internalized And the self doubt stung through his burning eyes The beats, obsolete, the verses aversive And he smoked weed cuz his passion was worthless He sold his records on the street of third A certain amount of distance in a dream deferred Alejandra immigrated at age 9 To avoid the cartels and escape crime A family of Mexican illegals America seemed true as an Elegant Eagle Their inherited freedom was as Precious as Sme agal Affectionate people who were questioned as equal See they moved to phoenix Arizona Where they couldn’t escape the people’s stares like Mona “No good aliens, drinking our Corona” On her quest for diploma, Alejandra met Jonah At Arizona State they had the same professor And they’d sit next to each other at every lecture They evolved from study buddies to buddy buddies to Lovy dovies to keep it cuddy buddies Cuz every step they wondered who would Discriminate Whether Chevy’s or Max’s on a dinner date A Jew and a Latina? One has to assimilate But they just took their love and energy and would reciprocate Then Arizona had a new law instated And a reborn woman was alienated And he whispered goodbye in her ear Frozen; watching her train disappear The last time she was seen or heard A certain amount of loss in a dream deferred Emery always loved arguing As he debated with the confidence of parliament Giving his parents responses that were bottomless To be a lawyer was his goal for accomplishment He was special in defending the innocent And mending the system with agendas of the quickest wit And he found that opportunity in Hungary Where he was a lawyer and he made a lot of money But they called his educated family dummies Enough that he had to find a way out of the Country See Hungary was invaded by communists Whose politics emptied its esophagus The hate and agony was absolutely foolish Hard to explain to a loving wife and two kids They escaped in the darkness of night Abandoning success for an Austrian life A camp of exhausted families and refugees Waiting for America to bless them free And 2 years later they moved to New York City Where he bathed in poverty and self pity Cultural idiosyncrasies, he wasn’t a box carrier But it’s hard to be a lawyer with the language barrier But his wife needed rest and his kids needed food So he sucked up his pride and got boxes to move Working hour after hour, losing his patience Saving penny after penny for his kids education They understood the struggle of a Hungarian So his kids became a teacher and a librarian And his son had me, a wordsmith of verses I never met Emery but I channel his purpose Cuz were both soldiers in a field of words A certain amount of hope in a dream deferred