For All 2010 Graduates

So I went to my friend Tzitzi’s graduation today. She spit a poem for the ceremony.

(Get ready for a soft ass moment here)

Of course it touched me (not inappropriately. she’s kinda amazing) because the message was so true. So I decided to share it with all of you graduates. Hopefully it inspires you to keep achieving and dreaming and all that good shit.

If you want to comment about the poem and you have me as a friend on facebook, you can check in my notes. Its the most recent one. Enjoy.

Little girl Art
Is a mixtape CD the radio would never put on rotation.
Too much truth lingers in her tongue
Over a hip hop beat tangled with a jazz sample.


She has the heart of a subway train performer somewhere in Union Square.
She’s not asking for much though,
Just tokens of appreciation in her Styrofoam cup of lyrics
Her mother tells her to keep her head up ….
As if she’s having staring contests with the clouds
Because the gravity of life is so quick to put you down.


Discouraged in her skin,
She puts her head facing the ground.
Asks herself what is the reason for following her voice if no one cares to listen
Why bother chasing dreams,
When the jungles in between seem only to break her self esteem
Life is a game with no teams.


She wants to be a successful musician - not a celebrity
She knows the paparazzi camera lenses
Are just the eyes of critics ready to mimic her strength,
They only want to snake her,
never build her, only break her,
Cause the cameras only take enough to make you fake.


Mommy says,
It’s not about what they can dance to,
It’s about what they can relate to.
Your music has the heart of a million dead legends
You can’t quit.
Too many people live nightmares never chasing their dreams -
And I swear you have the will to find a way.
Dreams are always closer than they appear like side-view mirrors.
Just look once in a while.


Talk like you own your destiny.
Walk like the inside of a gun barrel,
Never let them tell you that you don’t have enough fire in you.
Breathe off passion.
Live off your talent
Never let the cameras, and radio stations define you.
Never let a speed bump in the road get you off track jack,
You’ll be fine, you can get through the rough.
Life is tough.
But never enough a game one can’t win in.


Little girl Art
Stays true to self
Keeps her dreams quilted around the fiery cage of her walk.
She breathes a thousand tomorrow’s
Custom made for the voice of a thousand dead legends,
She is the mixtape
Gone in the wind for every dream a man,
Or woman has made a U-turn from
Needing the radio to remind them..
They are not alone.

She, too, once neglected her destiny
Only to find that living a life that wasn’t on her to-be list
Was the same as living a life that wasn’t her own
Mommy tells her,
In life, there are two streets.
The one that’s yours,
And the one you’ll learn not to take again.


Choose your path,
Be the soldier on the lines of the etch-a-sketched life you create,
Right, left, right, left
Be right in all you do even if it’s considered left field,
Never let your dreams be left unreal
Just..
Do what makes you happy.


Clouds
Just make the sky seem further,
But never let it candy coat your eyes in
Believing things are impossible.


Little girl Art
Is the Mixtape CD somewhere inside your heart right now..
And she wants to let you know,
That dreaming big…
Is the same…
As dreaming possible.