In this poem of mine, I’ll try to help you see,
what the world looks like, when your only seventeen.
But I’m kind of scared, ’cause it is my first time,
puttin my heart on this paper line after line.
So since this ain’t a poem, it’s more like a story,
The right thing to do is start from the begining.

June 13, is when I took my first breath,
by that time next year I had took my first steps.
And a couple months before I had said my first word.
Now I’m three years old reading first grade words.
Five years old, still learning basic rules,
I didn’t know about the world until I watched the news.

The crimes were violent, but I thought they were strange.
I’m just a little kid, what I know about rape?
And so we moved to Covington, to get away from the game,
In most ways it was different, but in some ways the same.
We stayed two years, before we had to go,
The house next door got broken into. Too close to home.

One more time, we had to leave.
I’m just seven years old it didn’t matter to me.
So we stayed in Brighton ’till I turned seventeen.
I liked it there, but the country ain’t for me.
And something about that house is sentimental to me,
You know a couple things happened, but thats between them and me.

We moved back to Covington, during my senior year,
I thought the sub would change, but everthing’s still here.
I figured I’d miss alot, but I  really ain’t miss a thang.
Everything’s still here, it just aged a decade.
On top of that, I met lots of old friends,
talked about how much we’ve grown, and tie up loose ends.

And here we are in the present, with you in disbelief,
’Cause I don’t seem like the type that writes poetry.
But I didn’t expect you to because you assumed,
you thought I’m just a class clown that likes to act a fool.
Now you know first-hand, nothing’s always as it seems,
if you were to look at the world as if you were seventeen.

In memory of Bennie Williams R.I.P.                           By: Jessie Louis Wilks Jr.