"What Are You Struggling For?"

I wrote this one off a brief image of 2 young males fighting in the back of a local store in southeast Durham , you could clearly see they both were gang affiliated and had bad intentions of hurting one another , and after I heard 3 loud noises in the form of gunshots at a stoplight it really hit me for some poetry.


What are you struggling for?

It's 9 o'clock In the morning

No cars , no hassle

City is pretty quiet

And I come from a small town so it's the norm to me

Not much violence for my eyes to see

Not much disrespect for my soul to breathe

I'm not under duress

Undoubtably I'm blessed

But That differs to the point of the two men I see

One with bright red shoes

And the other gloves , bright blue

And they approach one another , two young men with hateful intentions

Ready to kill no thought in mind for prevention

And I ask them what are you fighting for?

Are you fighting for independence?

The lords repentance?

Your parents acceptance?

No.....your fighting for a color.

Not a mother

Or a brother

But a COLOR..

I thought Martin Luther King fought for equal rights

And that Rosa Parks fought to sit in the front for the community to see the light

That we have so many people fighting for a Real Cause

But you?

Your fighting for a color..

What are fighting for?...

You put your family through struggle

Just to put up with this so called "hustle"

That you never realize that you're not fighting for anything

If it all this poem should be titled "what are you DYING for?"

And I ask you when you pull that trigger

I want you to ask yourself

What are you dying for..


-Moe Mahamed