Spoken. Word.

I was an outcast that was pushed out to sea,
I never really fit in so everyone rejected me,
All because I walked, talked, and dressed differently,
they were all a bunch of haters just to put it simply.

So I rowed, rowed, rowed my boat down the gentle stream
And I did so with a smile on my face ever so merrily.
Life was but a dream,
A nightmare scene.

You see, in a world of robots I was a flobot,
Trying to loosen their screws and nuts
So they could loosen up and go nuts
But I was fresh out of luck.

It was just me, myself, and my rhymes,
And whatever came out of my mind
To fill the next line.
Working at all I had until it was prime
Because I wanted my work to shine.

It wasn't until a go-bot
Heard that what I wrote was hot.
He said "show me what you got".
Everything seemed to work out like a fictional plot.

He liked my rhymes
But there was no contract with a dotted line
And a place to sign,
Just some goodbye words of "maybe next time".

Stupid me couldn't flow to a beat.
They wanted hip-hop material not someone that could only speak.
So I dragged my feet
Down the busy street
Accepting my defeat.
On to the next thing.

I had a collection of poems I wanted in a book.
I asked my English teacher to take a look.
She clicked her teeth and her head shook,
"This can never be published" and that's the last straw I took.

"Why not? What's the deal? I write good stuff.
Do you not want to support my work and dirty your cuffs?
She said "This poetry will never sell, listen to me and trust.
This will never get published and that's no bluff".

I stormed out of her classroom
Into a state of gloom
Towards a place of doom
But I was giving up too soon.
Time for something new.

It was just the mic and the stage,
An affair I was willing to engage.
This spoken word craze
Sounded like fair trade.

I stepped up with shaking hands,
Put my papers on the music stand,
Realized how this was all so unplanned,
And went into my own little la-la land.

The microphone was cold as ice.
The audience was quiet as mice.
I cleared my throat twice
And my voice began to entice.

Before I knew it, it was over and all I heard was snaps.
They eventually transformed into claps.
I got pats on my back,
Suggestions to make a track,
And get paid fat,
This and that.

It was so new,
Being accepted by this crew,
And only after my first debut.
All of this was long over-due.
I loved it, it was contagious like the flu.
I wanted more, this was just the preview.
I wasn't moving on just yet, this was too good to be true.

So I rowed, rowed, rowed my boat down the gentle stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, living out my dream...