I wrote a rap song about our relationship, about the type of experiences that led to crack jokes.
I was all like late at night I possomed around the neighborhood. Before creepin’ blew up, scavenger style ya know?
I had a new knife back then too, and these ultra-rare all-white nmds. I poured our stories over street hikes into the gutter because it was mostly just foam anyway. I smashed your clean canteen against the front door of a Starbucks on our old block like did they forget about us? Like shattered is my new tag.
I was all like we will never be able to afford binges that good. I was all about the party back then remember?
You were all like I think you lost yourself in time again I’m not in this second.
I kept drinking and threw mail into the black orange sky. All those lights. Eventually I found an Audi or a BMW, one from those Need for Speed games.
I was all like fuck. I forgot about the pressure doggie, and my new knife shot back, the tire deflated, the silence then an alarm.
I was all like we gotta sample that in a song, I waved my arms back and forth like I’m grasping at the escaped air from the tire. We twirled around each other, all laughs, the car alarm held the beat.
You were all like do we battle right now?
I didn’t even care about scuffing up those ultra-rare all-white nmds, so we screamed all the way back to my house in the flats. The boardwalk had a live band that night, and the audience vibed hella hard, we heard em screaming between songs.
They were all like aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!
The stars weren’t visible in so much light, the stretch marks on the sand, the black mark on all white.
Across the levee a guitar solo and the crowd was all like aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!
The world disrespected us then on the regular. We kissed each other on the mouth on the regular.
I was all like this isn’t a love poem, I mean song. When I was that drunk on colt 45 I sometimes used the words poem and song interchangeably.
Julian Smuggles is a Mexican American artist from San Jose, California. Their work utilizes text, film, and photography to discuss race, modernity, and chopped & screwed remixes.
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