“Listen here kid, have a seat.
Let me tell you about
The family.”*

You can choose your friends
But you can’t choose
Your family….

…and apparently you can’t choose
your career either.

This is dedicated to
my brother in crime
The younger brother
With stronger
Morals and values
Than mine.

The family is broken,
And your older brother is broke
And in the eyes of a distant father
You know we are both jokes

We are not prodigies
We are not straight A students
We are small town oddities
And some would say we are ruined

We were born into this life.
We were born into financial comfort
Bathed in upper middle class stability
Taught racism is acceptable as long
As we keep it to ourselves, and laugh
As if we are not serious.

We learned that as we grow up, dreams become schemes

We were raised believing we would succeed.
And success is defined by money.

The monetary system is god.
I will be the doctor
You will be the lawyer
And because the system isn’t flawed
We are.

Money is not good, money is god.
I’ve spent a lot of god on beer.

So when we watch our bloodline bicker
Like bad kids in sandboxes,
When we watch adults undermine
Each other’s “parenting skills”
Remember,

You did not chose this
You were born into this.

And as the age old argument
Of genetic versus environment
Rages on like arguments
Over furniture and kitchenware
Remind yourself
It’s not an argument.
Its your environment.

Today my little brother’s heart was broken
And his dreams were shattered like a
Malicious marriage
Divorced, and separated,
By god.

My little brother will not be an RCMP officer
And if he doesn’t know it yet,
This is the best thing to ever happen to him.

Just because your eyes aren’t apparently good enough
They have never stopped you from seeing right from wrong
They are wrong.
You are more then alright.

Cops are more crooked than the criminals they can’t catch
So whatever you do, don’t catch flack
For not having a backup plan
You turn 17 tomorrow, man…
Kid.
Be one.
For a kid can be anything.

You can race san dunes in the desert.
You can rebuild muscle cars and motorbikes.
You can make unique one of a kind furniture.
You can open a restaurant, even a bar.
You can be the next big sensation in Country music, or rap.
Or both.
You will live. You will smile
And you will make other do the same.

Brother, we can do anything.
Hell, when our parents die,
Miserable and alone,
We will inherit their throne
all of their god.

And we can take their god,
Design ourselves some superhero outfits
Break laws in order to fix them
We can grow and sell dope by donation
And make the difference
That neither our parents
Or the police
Are able to do.

I’m proud to share blood with you.
We are superheroes.
We are gods.
We are brothers in crime.