Slacker Girl (Dirty south, Two Outsiders, and Sleepless Nights)

Get them teeth fixed, spray some sheen on those dreads/get them bags out your eyes, get some rest and go to bed


The line, meant to pierce an up and coming female rapper like a blade, that contained the patronizing, fake-sisterly advice kept playing in the back of my own tired head

up late, school tomorrow, drawing needs to be complete so I can wake to something more pleasing to the eye

This test will boost your grade/Study well and pass the class/Think of how freshened you should feel, once you've slept sound at last

I miss my friend, who lives in another suburb far from me and who is surrounded by boxes in the white-brick home with the odd-looking ceiling---I wrote a poem about him earlier, trying to guess at what his reaction were to be if by chance he read through---Would he laugh, or shrug it off like a playful insult?

You can't stop by the market for giant soda bottles with an imaginary friend, or wander through town, mocking the countless McMansions with an invisible teen---We're both Greasers--outsiders looking to belong, yet trying to appear as if all we wanna do is take your money like M.I.A.---But I was drawing, not thinking about paper planes---Trina was spitting through my headphones instead

We are learning about planet Earth---an area where I have a lot of faults in a subject I manage to coast through each class like someone who just doesn't give a damn about the future---the words 'career' 'reality' and 'study' sound foreign to her

that rebel, rap junkie, antisocial and awkward teenage girl who can waste a night instead of brushing up on plate tectonics---She'd rather stroke that brush across a canvas she got from her uncle who paints strip malls and naked women

Dirty south rap newcomers lacked the country-fried zest the 21st century claimed they captured---When i think rap, I think of the wild west coast that brought Tupac and Dre---the east streets, gritty new york city and its not-so-innocent little sister, my own Chi-town stuck in the middle of both sides like a diplomat

The new south rappers were like mosquitoes to my ears, while my favorite female MCs weren't gonna have music riding the radio waves anytime soon---Remy Ma was rotting in prison and Southern queen Missy's album seemed too far away from my stereo

Then came the Diamond Princess---She raps about sex, money, getting glamorously drunk---What every decent fellow hates rap for spreading around like Swine flu

Her voice and lyrics are filthy---yet they're dirty in a way that repped the south, and showed she was Still Da Baddest---southern belle gone gangster, yet Trina never mentions a bullet---she doesn't wish to see tear-stained caskets or funerals

I listen to her song while I work on art of my own, but hers is the kind of art that I could listen to, feel higher than a paper plane, above my own art supplies and paper and pencil, then remember who I am and float like a leaf back down to Earth---a planet I know a C grade's worth of information about, where I loose sleep while my papa will preach to me on how I need to care about this class


A headphone falls out of my left ear as I scribble madly to the beat of the song, my masterpiece looking like a piece I hadn't quite mastered--Just one more stroke, fix her cheek, shade in her dress, capture the mood, make her look to impress---You'd think I was six again, playing with a dress up doll to fit my standards

Then again, I should have been studying, sleeping, sweaty from the heat, dreaming of a failing grade and that tag-along girl that won't stop asking if I'm awake as soon as I drag myself up out of the steaming covers

Get them bags out your eyes, get some rest and go to bed