Kanye West made me think polos were cool. I thought playing rap music while wearing polos would make me into a rapper. And then I turned into a tennis player. Tennis got me out of the hood. Let it be known. I could have went to court, and instead I chose the Tennis Court.
Tennis is fun. Before it was ratchet. Now it is tennis racket. Rapping was fun. Bernie Sanders liked rap. He liked Killer Mike, and he was a phenomenal rapper. Hilary listened to me. So I don’t know what that means. I should have been a rapper, but when I saw a videotape of Arthur Ashe playing tennis for Wimbledon, I felt a yearning grow inside of my gut, and it grew until I raised my hand to my mouth to smother the scream of nostalgia that I was feeling.
I wanted people to like me so I started rapping at cafeterias and bleacher stands. People drank cola and munched on popcorn as I talked about growing up in the hood of Burke. Real shit went down in the Burke. Like shit you wouldn’t believe. And that’s real.
I hung out on a rooftop overlooking the city drowned in sunshine that was sad as the girl who left me. Kanye West saved me from becoming a piece of shit. And even if he’s an asshole now, everyone knows he was the greatest with 808’s and Heartbreak. Robocop used to play from the car speakers, as we rolled spliffs in the front seat, the wind pouring into the windows.