GA Performs A Boy Within the System from GCE Lab School on Vimeo.
A Boy Within the System
A boy within
the system
made the boy go crazy
Ima victim of the system
Big man cutting treatment bills from the ill
That's mental
Survival of the fittest
That’s the way they got us livin
Addicted
Liquid pistols and pills
This is how we get commited
system gotchu restricted
Thin white lines
Now your jurisdiction
Turn to crooks that do time
When did we decide
This is a victimless crime
But that's the big mans plan
Keep you weak with a strong extended hand
Bills written in riddles
You misunderstand
Take your right hand
And sit in the witness stand
While the wise man gets tongue taken and tied
Bills get certified
Big man wears power
To hide his vile sty
Making deals with the devil
Roll the 6 sided die
Bills are even
And you’re oddly left with dry bones
mentally acidified
This boy Within
this system
Sees these people
These are the people stuck within this system
Aunt sally still nagging with a few pumps of oxygen
Little junior taking the wrong path but little junior brings home the dough so he's a fine
young man
young man
Crazy old man goes by the name of joe
Joe owns no home
He reeks and sneaks rocks up his nose
Kids on the block know what's cool
These kids know how to kick it, pop it, and do a flaming lock it
Pass the joint
Don't dare to drop it
This is the system in which we disguise as poverty
Quick pills to take the eaz
Get rid of stress is all they need
This is mental illness not poverty
These are chains that have not been broken
These are people who have lived unspoken
Brainwashed to believe they need no help
It's not the system
Its poverty
To think your ill is a mockery
Just keep thinking one day you will win the lottery
Say goodbye to poverty
Live a long healthy life
Only to find out
I'm back to the same chain
Wondering why it is this way
But all along you were stuck within
the system
not poverty
I'm the boy within
This system
The boy thats sick
Not mental
Loudspeakers keep the voices away
Baggy trus white tee glistening shoes keeps me cool
And keeps the abnormality away
Fed with lies and hypnotized life scares the hunger away
Boxes of antioxidants don't make me obey
Walking high on two feet
With a cig in each pocket
Lean walking
The money you baggin
Got us toe taggin
Im Delusional
Amphetamine got the best of me
Blurry vision
Got me
straight trippin
Hope the prayers start kickin
Admirable intoxication
Is what builds this nation
The world domination
The world is our creation
The matrix
kill the ill give me eaz
Just take the blue pill
Im mental
Hard to say
The red pill is existential
My demons write my future
Erase my brain with a pencil
I'm fed up
Choked up
Knees shake
Eye roll
God please
Save my soul
I'm begging you
I'm not worthy
But this little boy need sum lovin too
Good kid M.A.A.D city
Made the good kid cruel
I'm not ill,
I'm just sick of the same old stew
Same cig don't wanna light up too
Ignorance is bliss
Until the demons take that too
I'm gone
I'm not mental
I'm just sick
The message of my poem is a boy within the system and mental illness. The boy I address talks about how he feels towards bills being cut from the mental health care system; people of the lower class can't be treated after these cuts being made. In the first stanza I talk about the man in power taking away the bill that allows people to get treated and how that affects the people. I start to talk about how people start to rely on medicated drugs which lead to overdose and that can lead to “victimless crimes” and how that leads to, “crooks that do time”. In the second stanza I talked about the community and how “stuck within the system”. The purpose of this was to teach people how mental illness still seen as a taboo thing. It's not poverty that's bringing them down it's the mental chains that are not being broken, not letting you get out of that certain standpoint. In the 3rd stanza I talk about the boy who is mentally ill, he feels conflicted; does not want to settle on drugs and get stuck within the system. Because Writing this poem with the perspective of the boy, I seemed to use the same poetic devices throughout my poem. Throughout the poem I used a balanced level of wordplay for example, when talking about the man with power I used multisyllabic rhymes to balance the slang rhyme, giving it a stronger cadence. Throughout the piece I also used anaphora as my transition as i talked about the bills, community, and me which was the boy within the system. Throughout my performance I wanted to keep it strong, sharp, simplistic. My performance really depended on the poetic devices because the flow of the rhyme played a big roll. My cadence had a song like tone in the first stanza this enhanced the tone of the poem by setting a mood of who this boy is and how he feels about the system. The volume I used was loud and clear. I wanted the audience to feel attacked and made sure they knew every word had strong meaning and needed to be heard.When revising my poem and my performance I definitely change the poem more than the performance. Because I knew I wanted the performance to be monotone strong and simplistic I knew I had to include more metaphor, alliteration, etc. to hold meaning to what I was saying. I decided this because I wanted to play on the person that is mentally ill. Most people when they think of a mentally ill person think they have no sense of analyzation and articulate. I wanted voice in these people “who have lived unspoken”.
The message of my poem is a boy within the system and mental illness. The boy I address talks about how he feels towards bills being cut from the mental health care system; people of the lower class can't be treated after these cuts being made. In the first stanza I talk about the man in power taking away the bill that allows people to get treated and how that affects the people. I start to talk about how people start to rely on medicated drugs which lead to overdose and that can lead to “victimless crimes” and how that leads to, “crooks that do time”. In the second stanza I talked about the community and how “stuck within the system”. The purpose of this was to teach people how mental illness still seen as a taboo thing. It's not poverty that's bringing them down it's the mental chains that are not being broken, not letting you get out of that certain standpoint. In the 3rd stanza I talk about the boy who is mentally ill, he feels conflicted; does not want to settle on drugs and get stuck within the system. Because Writing this poem with the perspective of the boy, I seemed to use the same poetic devices throughout my poem. Throughout the poem I used a balanced level of wordplay for example, when talking about the man with power I used multisyllabic rhymes to balance the slang rhyme, giving it a stronger cadence. Throughout the piece I also used anaphora as my transition as i talked about the bills, community, and me which was the boy within the system. Throughout my performance I wanted to keep it strong, sharp, simplistic. My performance really depended on the poetic devices because the flow of the rhyme played a big roll. My cadence had a song like tone in the first stanza this enhanced the tone of the poem by setting a mood of who this boy is and how he feels about the system. The volume I used was loud and clear. I wanted the audience to feel attacked and made sure they knew every word had strong meaning and needed to be heard.When revising my poem and my performance I definitely change the poem more than the performance. Because I knew I wanted the performance to be monotone strong and simplistic I knew I had to include more metaphor, alliteration, etc. to hold meaning to what I was saying. I decided this because I wanted to play on the person that is mentally ill. Most people when they think of a mentally ill person think they have no sense of analyzation and articulate. I wanted voice in these people “who have lived unspoken”.
