Throwback: Triune Trauma

I meant to post this earlier. I read the memoir A Long Way Gone, and wrote this piece as a creative response to the horrific events described in the novel. The main character, Ishmael, stated that he is a big fan of hip-hop and that it was one of the things that always reminds him of his childhood before, during, and after the war. I wanted to construct a slam poem/rap detailing the three stages of his life: his time before the war, his time as a soldier, and his struggle for redemption afterwards. I tried to make it purposely bellicose, to give it a “diss track” feel, and view this piece as Ishmael’s diss to the world for what has happened to him, yet there is a message of hope towards the end.

If I reach deep down within my past

Before the hands of time grab it too fast

I can see faint traces of I’ve lost

How the price of war, carries a heavy cost

One day, Imma be a rapper

But I don’t wrap gifts, I’ll wrap your body in a bag,

My language is explosive like a frag,

You wouldn’t be able to stand on my track,

I eat your weak rhymes like a snack,
Woah...chill down man, just relax,

And breathe, taking in the cassava leaves and rice

The overripe bananas and Sierra Leone spice,

These are the smells of a community that’s united,

We live our own lives, far away from the fighting,

Even though life isn’t perfect, I’m still so thankful for what I have

My parents, though divorced are still married to me,

I’ll never forget my roots; I’m part of the family tree

So if I appear belligerent with my words, know it’s just a joke

We’re just youngsters messing around, putting on an ostentatious show

Lately, what I’ve been doing is dancing to this music you call rap

It’s got my feet a slave to the beat, I guess you can call it trap

But this fast-talking to some percussion, all of my friends and I love it

We’ll kill time, just to understand what these spitters say,

We’ll slay seconds, and beat hours 24 times till they turn to a day

So right now, l can attest that life is good

It’s a simple cycle, and I do what I should

I go to school and help around the house,

During the day, I’ll play soccer at the park

And at night, with my brother Junior, we’ll tell stories of monsters in the dark,

But never during the time that I was having fun,

Would I have known that I would become one?

If I reach deep down within my past

Before the hands of time grab it too fast

I can see faint traces of I’ve lost

How the price of war, carries a heavy cost

How did I ever gain pleasure from such trivial pursuits?

Kicking at soccer balls like a childish brute?

Settling for such plebian and layman food?

That boy is gone, now you’re looking at new Ishmael

Now I kick the heads of my enemies till they move no more

I steal whatever I want, watch yourself, I’m bad to the core

I scoff at you school boys, thinking you can save yourself with knowledge and education,

So you’ve learned all the literary devices? congratulations!

When I ballistically bruise you badly with bullets, save yourself (ha) with alliteration!

It’s in the army where you’ll learn real skill,

The equation for life is simple: kill or be killed

So you should change your field of study,

Look at me, 15 years old, and all I know is guns, drugs, and hip-hop

But I mix these opposites well, like the Notorious Tupac

I spill no black ink, just blood on city blocks

Trying to fight with me, it's no competition

I’m number one on the charts cuz of my headshot percentage

Give me any rebel and I’ll spar

I’m a good kid, turned mad by my city that’s Kendrick Lamar

As long as I have my gun, I know I’ll be Alright

I don’t slip, I’m not Freud

My shooting is mechanical, like an android

Now I get a rush from the violence I reap,

You wouldn’t last 7 days out here, cuz you’re so weak

I’ve survived back to back battles, this job ain’t for the meek

I’m a monster uncaged on the battlefield, an animal out of the pen

My clique runs deep, we kill anyone who run Solo, that’s Kylo Ren

Your life is in my hands, will you die? It depends?

Just a boy, but I’ve killed a lot of men

Murdered grown up versions of my future, of what I could have been...

I talk with war a lot, we consider each other friends

Look what this friendship has made me do...

I hack apart bodies for it and sever so many limbs

I create Frankenstein's, killing has become a hobby

Now I wonder what kids my age are doing,

Other children got toys and Coloring Books, I didn’t get a Chance

I was seduced by violence, and caught in its trance

So please war, let me go,

Haven’t I given enough of my service to you already?

If I reach deep down within my past

Before the hands of time grab it too fast

I can see faint traces of I’ve lost

How the price of war, carries a heavy cost

Adulthood yearns to release itself from this form,

Rushed maturity attempts to bleed out through my scars

The child and adult in me try to tear itself apart,

Leaving me fatigued and filled with stretch marks

I am a grown man in a child's body

No matter how hard you make me try, I won’t sit still in the lobby

Trying to rehab off drugs makes my head foggy

Why are you trying to change me? The damage has been done

All I know is war, just give me back my gun

Nurse, stop asking me about what happened

About my days as an army captain

About how after slitting throats of victims, we’d die laughing

While rebels swam in their blood, we just started rapping

I don’t want to go back to those memories...I don’t want to feel this pain

I can’t raise the dead, I can’t take back who I’ve slain,

I’m just not Abel, instead I’m Cain

Like Lady Macbeth, the blood's on my hands... it’s stained

People tell me it’s not my fault

It “wasn’t really me” carrying out those assaults,

I was “just a boy”, unaware of what I was doing

But ignorance is not innocence, and enough of that was taken from me,

Though I’m not dead, I don’t think I can live again

Now when I see leaves on branches

They hang like bodies off trees

Innocuous faucets now drip blood

A bird’s song is the bang of a gun

But I’m told that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel

That I can outlive my tragedies

My past doesn’t have to define me

Though I’ve lost much, I can start anew

The path to healing is long but I’ll push on

Even though my childhood is a long way gone