Another Try

Kinky-haired and short and slight,
A boy who was never
Much good in a fight
Except he was clever
At using his words
To antagonize others
When they acted like turds.
“Why not be a writer?”
He said to himself,
“I can use a new name
And be somebody else.”
Seems that off the playground
His verbal attack
Made him less of a Zorro
and more of a hack.
His fourteenth-rate prose
and rhymes uninspired
Left him in loans
And rejections all mired.

She was thin, she was blonde,
and had a voice of jade,
The pretty “girl next door”
Who really thought she'd escape.
She sang even more
Than the birds in the park.
She wrote songs in the shower
and she danced in the dark.
She watched the MTV,
She practiced all her moves,
Her parents noticed her.
The boys just saw her boobs,
They got her into bars,
Said they were record producers.
Could she have gone far?
I don't know. She went home.
If she had to be pregnant,
It's best she's not alone.

Fastest boy on the field,
He still played with fire,
Took no plays off, wouldn't yield.
To the big leagues he aspired,
Or at least get out on scholarship,
Stiff-arm twenty years of trouble
And you might just make it.
He never touched drugs
But downfalls can be found
Near as unlucky footfalls
And holes in the ground.
He held onto the ball
In obvious distress
Tried to keep playing
Though his knee was a mess,
And his ankle all wrong.
He didn't think that never
Would be his Not For Long.

So many young people
Take their long shot.
They hope they're the one,
But they're probably not.
Does fate mean to be cruel?
It's a pretty good bet.
You don't get your desserts
You'll just get what you get.
Their reasons to exert
May have passed them by,
But once they have kids
It's like they get another try
To leap reaching for the moon,
And maybe land in the sky,
Among satellites and shooting stars
(With only fifteen minutes,
They drive the fastest cars)
If they're successful in it,
Then it was worth the time,
The butting heads with fate,
And lonely, doubtful times.