The Dean's List (A Poem for World AIDS Day)

Way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the city was getting live
was a beautiful young lady who was becoming full grown
who left her proper upbringing
to call the streets her home
she left to study the fast life
and become a scholar
to learn to use what she got
to get what she want
and to make her momma and daddy holla
Way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the city was just getting live
that young lady learned from a pimp
how to survive
oddly enough it was only he who thrived
she sought the attention, the money...yet it wasn't how she planned
when she learned
the money she earned
went directly to that man
and
Way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the city was fully alive
a lost young lady learned lessons, while on her back she lie
somewhere in the interim, she stopped to hve two daughters
and it seemed she had been schooled on all the streets had taught her
but she must have craved to learn more
for she was back out the door
she hadn't yet found what she was looking for
Way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the the city got far too live
a mysterious little bug hit some folks
and they quickly started dying
a lot of the wrong people, felt at ease
for this was the gay, white man's disease
and being on the streets
this fast young woman thought she
was excluded from that number
even though with strnge men she did slumber
remember she was schooled in the ways of the concrete jungle
she wasn't gay, she wasn't white
thought none of how she lived herlife was right
no doctor's visits, no yearly exams did she have
just day after day on the stroll on Biscayne Ave.
Way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the city was getting live
she reminisced on the mistake in her life
she recalled how sexy she was
how the men gave her money
so they could have a taste of her sweet honey
show she left her kids to be care free
only to have a fatal virus to carry
she remembered how she could blow
do some blow
and in the end
she was
FULL BLOWN!
Because way back in the day in the 3-0-5
in the heart of the ghetto
when the city was getting live
she studied all the easiest subjects
drinking, drugs and prostitution
in which she got straight As
but learned the hardest lesson of them all when she died from AIDS


*Dedicated to my cousin Dean Wynn who lost her life to AIDS*