Physically…sitting in the courtroom

Mentally…Reflecting on his life

Growing up in the projects, raised by a single parent

Rumor was…his father was a deadbeat,

all he knew was life in the streets, which got him sent straight to the penitentiary.

He was a Jr. named after his father

and everyone said he would be just like him

But he vowed to himself to never bring shame to his name,

Even if he was his fathers seed

All he knew was the hood

The police always driving around or knocking on doors

. It kept his mother on her knee's saying

" Lord Help My Child to get away from the streets"

He had seen it all…

People getting shot, selling drugs, people getting robbed, even a drug bust

It was either join a gang or have his mother sitting outside mourning over his grave.

The boys in his hood, thought in order to survive that you had to carry a weapon;

just in case someone tried to pull a 187

It was a life for a life state of mind that's why a lot of people were locked up doing time

But no longer would he be a prisoner of his situation

This, his latest affair had brought about a revelation

Although he was bred from hatred...a seed watered with blood

And although his journey was from the womb to the hood

Here, now in this courtroom he decided that

Not to his hood, but to the hoodlife he would turn his back

For a hustler, a thug, a victim he would no longer be

No...this seed of the projects has chosen a new identity

.