On the Come Up

by Angie Thomas

Usually I’m cool with an entire hour of not knowing what the president tweeted.

Star Wars technically isn’t sci—never mind.

See, last year a kid was murdered by a cop just a few streets away from my grandparents’ house. He was unarmed, but the grand jury decided not to charge the officer. There were riots and protests for weeks.

Half the businesses in the Garden were either intentionally burned down by rioters or were casualties of the war. Club Envy, the usual Thursday nightspot, was a casualty.

While most people know Snoop and Dre for “Deep Cover,” one time I found a remake of it by this rapper named Big Pun on YouTube. His flow on this song was one of the best I’ve ever heard in my life.

That’s when I learned that when people die, they sometimes take the living with them.

I mean, it’s one thing to wanna do something. It’s another to think it’s possible.

Jay says this was like having a stranger come in your house, steal one of your kids, and blame you for it because your family was dysfunctional, while the whole world judges you for being upset.

This a temporary setback for a major comeback. We ain’t letting it stop the come up.”

I do not wanna be that random person on Twitter, going into threads and dropping Dat Cloud links that nobody asked for.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Grandma says as they glance at Jay. “You know what they say, folks ain’t ever truly clean once they been on that mess.”

“Damn, Bri. He talked to you like a human being, now all of a sudden you’re thirsty for him? What kind of heterosexual bullshit is that?”

There’s always that one white boy who says stupid shit in the name of making his friends laugh. You can usually find them trolling on Twitter. We just spotted one in the wild.

I’m more of a “yes, people exist, but that doesn’t mean I need to talk to them” person.

“Easy,” I say. “In no order, Remy Ma, Rapsody, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Joyner Lucas.”

Throw the list out

I get it. Church is full of people with plenty to say and nothing to do.

“I love you too . . . Mom.”