please don't do it prompt

“Please don’t do it” I keep saying to myself trying to focus back. I guess that's a bit of a dramatic way to start the story so let me take you back to the beginning.

I woke on another Thursday morning feeling unrested even though I had slept in past 12:00 and because life’s a bitch me being tired is more the standard than the exception. Getting out of the bed and stretching I did the waking shuffle to the bathroom and took a quick piss then ran through my morning routine. I had barely even finished putting my bed away before my brother reminded me that we were supposed to ball today and seeing as I was out of work right now and had jack to do why not get a quick round but that wasn't due for a few hours so you know I’m gone bullshit the wait away. Laying back on the sofa I scroll through Netflix knowing I’ve basically watched everything that's good already but what better way is there to waste away a few hours of my one and only life? Searching for jobs? I think not. So, like I say I'm just sitting here freeloading letting some background noise play while I scroll through Netflix seeing how much stress and dopamine I can rack up in the minimum time. Why? because I don't have anything better to do. If it was important enough to take me away from rotting my brain watching senseless drama played by average to bad actors, plus I would mess it up anyway. Before we go any further let me warn you, writing dialogue isn't really my style, but I'm not so bad that I’ll outright refuse to give you conversations. It's important you know that seeing this story is an inside view in the way I think about life, as such I have to preface that I'm a long-time reader. It isn't till about 5:00 I really get up and get ready to go ball, me and my brother doing the casual banter that is as much a specific thing to our family as it is to our culture; all wit and slick talk no reason to even do it, and it doesn't need a reason I make a joke about your hair looking like if Kevin Durant hadn’t gotten swept out of the finals. It's important to just enjoy be relaxed like this sometime I forget that a lot, hyper focused as I am on the ever tenuous presence of our peace and the ways in which I can try to secure it tighter, in order to ease my fears of it being torn away. I know I’m blessed to have this peace and for others living in my same 14,000 population city the same peace doesn't exist. I feel my cortisol shoot up as I remember the person I used to be in high school and the way I would chase after trouble like it was the baddest girl in my city or some shifty running back who had managed to get out the backfield. Now I sit and think about the way my nephew describes a bullet flying through his mom's house and his grandpa seeing it pass in front of him while he's just sitting in his own house. I remember how his mom thanked God that no one was hurt, and a mixture of feelings bubbled up in my head. Some I recoil from, but others I lean into. like the anger I feel at the people who used to be kids I went to high school with doing this and putting people in danger to be “gangstas''. I feel frustration because I know if my parents had not blocked the same path off for me I’d be dead or doing the same thing. So, yea a frustration that for a lot of black kids: ones that might be raised by people who have always set the proper examples and tried to teach them the right way to live the, battle they’re fighting of raising black kids is a losing one. The reason we're losing this battle is poverty: a poverty that seems to hang onto nearly every black person I know. My biggest desire is to strip the poverty off and step into being an affluent rich black man, but it doesn't work that way. In America there are many ways to get rich and it's not just us who are trying to get there. The most desired ones by Black boys everywhere are sports and rapping. Being paid to put your voice out there has enamored the mind of all of us at some point. We see the Jay Zs, Dres, Youngboys, and Polo Gs: Even if we have no specific desire or goal to rap we fantasize about it that “I wish I was a global rapper” thought flits through my mind on late nights as I work on college essays and warm afternoons while I sit and laugh with my gang and never more than when I sit and think about my frustration of the day in the early hours of the morning before the day starts, or in the late hours of the night as I think on all fears and worries I have for America and even more specifically its black citizens and communities. If I could properly display my emotions I'd probably cry. I feel that familiar sad feeling fill my heart and it always feels like my heart should overflow. It fills my eyes to the brim and I think this time the sadness is to much and the dams will break: but no matter how much I want it or how I near I come to crying because I see the partial answers that might not save but would definitely ease the problems American communities face. There’s the mental health side of things but more important to me because they can affect the mental and save the physical immediately are the spaces we inhabit. I see the run down state of our cities and parks, I see the complete lack of a community centers, and complacent disengagement of everyone around. They were long ago exhausted by the system whose function is to maximize the amount of money they give to corporations. I watch a TikTok video by some Nigerian girl whose name I don’t even bother to remember. She asks why we have no fruit trees in America. She’s completely baffled by it and I know the official reason of the fruit being a “slipping hazard” and “stains on sidewalks and cars”. I know the truth of that it’s really because if fruit is free if you can just walk down the street and have some food it would slightly alleviate the burden of poverty and we wouldn’t be forced to spend our money at Walmart or Super One Foods, and I look at the young trees I’ve planted in my own back yard and I see the garden beds I’m currently working on and a sense of despair mingled with hope rises. Despair because I know planting free food in parks as a policy would be met with resistance and protest that would make you think they had just forced everyone to work in the gardens if it was on anyone’s radar which it is not. Hope because I’m doing it right now, if I can do it if I can just be successful and spread the message then maybe someone else will, maybe we will start to escape the tyranny of poverty. That fantasy flits though my head thoughts of being rapper flits through my mind. This time it lingers, if I had rapper money I could convince my city to feed their poor with simple measures like these. I think about NLE choppa and how he has a garden that he promotes on his social media and a hopeful smile comes on, it is tainted by the knowledge that NLE is a middle to upper middle class suburban black and his raps still talk about a gangsta lifestyle he’s never had to live. I know the reason rap is so saturated with sex, drugs, and violence is a result of the people who own the industry, it’s what they promote so it’s what people make to get famous. They’ve nearly killed the sound that in the 80’s promoted education and criticized the system that causes our people to be over criminalized. The rap industry is now complicit in these systems attempts to keep black people down. This is not a realization: it's a reflection on old information but one I must keep doing in order not to lose sight of the truth. 

“You ready to go”

My brother interrupts my short seconds of reflection because he’s ready to ball. That quickly my thoughts switch from the careful hyper specific mode that allows me to take interest in legal papers and parsing the exact nature of the systems we interact with daily. To the just as carefully composed carefree swagger that me and every other black male I know carry ourselves with. From my cocky smile to the tension in my lower back that keeps my shoulders back and upper back straight and legs engaged to the slight lowering of my head to meet everyone I see eyes. I'll drop and lose the swagger at time usually due to extended times in places that are entirely to peaceful but a getting in a fight or hanging with the right crowd always brings it right back. Its just like riding a bike; if that bike were knowing the right way to walk and talk so no nigga think about testing you, and carrying yourself so that if they should test you’ll make sure they’re the one to fall.

“Course I’m ready what you think I’m just some unprepared ass nigga?” the way we talk might seem rude to some outsider but it’s the way we talk, nigga don’t like it nigga don’t like it. I wipe my shoes off on my hand and take another shot “aye I’m on today” I congratulating myself on the shot I hit and grab my rebound and half bound half lazy jog to the car. As I hop in shutting the door I ask my brother “who gone be out there” but either I’m talking fast or he’s hearing slow because I have to repeat it about three times before he hears. “I don't know price text me they was balling out there so I post it on snap” I figured the answer would be something like that but it never hurt to ask “you got Noah snap?” he ask me I respond with something about how I don’t fuck with Noah censored of course my mom’s in the car and she don’t like us to cuss she and my dad are of the opinion that we’re educated enough that we don’t need crude language to communicate. I agree but I speak like the people I talk to. I would never tell her that lest she pop me in the mouth for being disrespectful. She knows I cuss but even at twenty she’d still pop me in the mouth for talking like that around her. We get to the park, and I hop out dapping up some peers and teammates from back in high school. We not tight but we still dap each other “say bro toss me the ball" I say walking while my brother hangs back talking with him. I swagger on court and throw up a few bricks before I even set my bag down. I ain't stressing though that's warm up shots and I ain’t even set my bag down yet. I go off the court and throw my bag down emptying my pockets into it. My phone already has enough cracks in it to last however long till I upgrade. Two of them boys hit cap and pick up they squad and I stand off to the side waiting for my next about three games later me and my squad hop on court and the height mismatch is clearly visible, we’ve got no one over 5”10 and they have two people in excess of 6” ones about 6”5 and the other somewhere between 6”1 and 6”3. I’m not worried about the height difference today it's a game of threes and neither of them like to go up really strong. I’ve got the shorter of the two and from watching the games he just played I know I need to watch out for his three and midrange jumper. I line up in front of him, knees slightly bent, and my feet set wide. I know I need to play Marcus Smart-esque defense to make up for the height difference: stay in front of him and harass, don't just try to get a stop, he's good at creating space and his shots don't usually miss. On their first possession they give it to him setting screens and moving around making it hard to contest. He does a good crossover beating me to his left side. I rush back to stop the drive, but he doesn't go for the lane instead he steps back and pulls a three “bink!” it glances the rim and goes in 2-points for them. I catch the rebound and inbound to mone running down and setting up at the three before he gets there. His defender is hacking him, and I come roll back up setting the screen he pulls up the three “fwim” it goes in 2-points. They inbound and come down and their taller guy pulls an early three it sails in and we’re running back the other way. This time when I set the screen the help steps up early so I fade out to the three, he dumps the ball off to me and “shush” the ball's in, like it had a magnet that pulled it to the center. That's the first of the three buckets I make that game. My mom pulls up about two plays later and I rush to finish the game. We lose 7-12 and I've got to head out. I snag my bag, call for my ball, and we dip we’re gonna be late for church and my mom won't be too happy about it. The trip’s short, only five minutes but I’ve sat down and my body kicks into cooling mode and sweat pools on every surface of my body from my head to toes. We’re about two minutes late but no one even mentions it, and so everything just goes as usual just about two minutes late, it's not so bad. 

We go through prayer requests and then my dad hands out the papers on what he’ll be teaching. It's the nature of our salvation. It's a good lesson but my mind ends up drifting. I start thinking back to McNeese and my friends, I miss them and even though I know my dad doesn't like when I’m on my phone while he’s teaching, I send my best friend a text and reminisce for a few seconds about McNeese and hanging out and getting drunk with them. I power my phone off so that I can pay attention, as always I’m aware while he’s teaching that the reason I can even be so negligent while learning is because of the critical thinking skills they’ve taught me by having us read and teaching the bible to us. It's a very philosophical document, in fact if it is examined plainly it's a social philosophy. I would say just from mine own anecdotal experience, forcing kids to read it is at least as beneficial as it would be to have them examine any other complex philosophical texts. In fact it's the only reason I was able to read Ayn Rand's novels that try to play at being legitimate philosophical texts. I keep trying to bring myself back to the lesson. I don't know whether it's all the running I’ve just finished doing or the long week that it’s been but my mind keeps wandering. At this point I’m just ready to scream I can’t focus and my minds jumping from topic to topic. I keep refocusing and I know I’ll get mentally sidetracked again but inside I’m screaming to my own mind "please don’t do it.".