FRESH
His parents are completely lost; they don’t know what is going on
He’s skipping school, he’s talking back, the boy they knew is all but gone
He’s scared he’ll be made fun of, if he comes off as too pure,
Besides, it doesn’t hurt to live a little, of that he’s very sure.
It hurts too much to be different; he has to be the same
And though he knows it isn’t right he falls into their game
He falls hard and breaks himself over and over again
The girls, the drugs, they’re all that matter, its etched into his brain
Euphoric pleasure clouds his vision; he can’t see what he’s doing
It makes him blind, it makes him numb; he can’t see where he’s going
The jagged, thorny, downhill path somehow eludes his very eyes
And all he sees and all he hears are what they show him and all their lies.
He’s made a choice to breathe their fumes and live off their sweet poison
The high it gives, it separates him from the soul that he keeps bruising
MATURE
Oh the pain of memories! The times he used to have,
He’d trade an arm, or both his legs to the one who floats above
To have them back, to live again, if only for a moment
When aging was a distant threat, when he knew not what it meant.
Now life is far less exciting, work, wife and children
Each a challenge on its own, a dream until he had them
He’s overworked, he’s very stressed, he’s broken down in every way
He rises up before the sun and boards a trosky every day
It’s off to work and back again, how much can a poor man take
He needs to rest before he dies; he needs more than a simple break
GRUMPY
The youth they think they know it all, their twisted sense of right
He wishes for the good ol’ days when bark was equal to bite
As his daughter scolds her son, he shakes his head and then he grunts
If he were her he would have spanked that naughty child over his pants.
Fear, that’s what it is, they’re scared of being hated,
Can you believe she had the nerve to call his ways outdated?
Yes, he admits that might be true but weren’t they effective?
He’s given up advising them, their hearing is selective.
Why should a man as wise as he even waste his breath?
At least he knows he won’t be bothered when he sleeps in death.
'Trotro', or 'trosky', is a multi-passenger van or mini bus that runs about 95 per cent of the streets in Ghana.