Can we go back...to where life met laughter. To when love had more value than fame. To how we used to respect those who came before us. And family extend far beyond the limits of your doorsteps. Can I get back to a gap toothed smile and fill em in puzzles. To puff bread and pecan candy. To walking my hanging with the homies at Dunbar. Who want to go back to walking from Oak St to Wakefield. Playing ball at Centennial Park, East end community center and MLK Elementary. Somehow I've wipped away a lot of my memory, however, I'll never forget my homies playing their makeshift drum set and me winking at their sister behind their back. Childhood crushes right. I have erased dates and events but the way you all have influenced me is engraved in me like the chiseled details on Donatello sculptures. I just want to go.....

Smokey rooms and idle banter,
across the fields of my mind still canter
girls in short skirts, January to December,
the embers flicker and flame as days remembered -D'ya remember?*

Teflon tough guys with hardened looks
fast friends by nights end-foundations shook
I hook fast to the Past-MAN WE HAD A BLAST!
bait my line and cast as the time streams pass

some cry alas as the nights grow dim,
me I'll always have my Total Recall to dip in,
conversations reach out to snag my arm,
No alarm as I'm mugged in memory lane, just charm

we were charming rascals with roguish eyes,
no fools as the street schooled on us no flies!,
So we thought til life taught us harder lessons,
as the Mask beneath the Mask reveals transgressions*

faithless lovers and fair weather friends,
left their mark on our lives as they came to the end,
of their briefer tenure amongst REAL mates,
at your back in the corner as you faced your fate....

After laying awake way past her bedtime
There where nights she cried herself to sleep,

Thinking how could she have possibly been so naive?

But as she closed her eyes and wanders down the streets of once-used-to-be's
She realises, she'd lost herself to a past of full of mistreatment
But now she refuses to be a victim of it and stands tall rising above it
There used to be a time she'd been used, and so to be used was all she knew
And to crave love, a sense of belongingness, was unthinkably selfish
So instead of finding love from within,
She'd give her all to all those who'd treat her like she didn't mean a thing
And apologised and forgave repeatedly though she was never to blame
She became a dreamer of dreams to cope with the painful reality of things

But now instead of living with wishful thinking
She wakes up and struggles hard to make her dreams into a reality
No longer a slave to her fictional fantasies

I got down
And see the street lights
The cars passing by
Stuck in the headlight

I've seen bestfriends become lovers
We've eaten their left overs
What's left with us,
Is the piece of junk way back past.

I've watch lovers love
Like I did before
I've watched them fall apart
I've felt their beating heart

Baby there's no ticket to the past
There's nothing you can do
We didn't make it last
Just throw your love to the past