19300
When I qualified for this slam, my brother asked me, what if you come in second place, I thought about it for a minute, and then I remembered how for my whole life I’ve always came second, I was the second child born to a broken mother whose father drunk whiskey for recreation and considered beating my grandmother his therapy sessions, I was the second string on my high school football team, but I really became a poor sport when I got second place in divorce court because my ex wife won there, I came in second place in the fourth grade to a guy named terrence dennie at a shoot out contest, and I avoided shaking his hand after the competition, see crazy enough for me, second place has become a cancer that goes into remission but always come backs like monthly bill collectors, hitting me with a second notice saying if you do not pay your dues, the seconds that you have to enjoy these lights will turn into hours of darkness, then I started to wonder, who was that person that was two seconds late to work going to the trade centers that fateful day, who was two seconds behind that truck, that served as a barrier from them dying in that six car pile up, how many times did the chicago cubs have to finish in second place before ending the curse in a hundred and eight, see what I learned most about second place is that sometimes, being the first loser can save your life, cause being the second choice of a gangbangers wrath allowed me to run away from paths of bullets, or being that girls second choice prevented me doing 18 years of hard labor, but naw, everyone wants to be first at all cost, and it's all good to be the boss, but remember, a company is only as good as its employees who keep your name clean with a nice track record, but most of us wanna keep running to break records, cause life has conditioned us to believe that if we lose the race we are not worthy of the place we reside in, so we sell out for personal goals at the expense of our soul and then wonder why the *** our own shadow is ashamed to follow us, see I would rather be evicted by failure than to live comfortably with regret, so if that means taking two steps backwards and three steps forward as hesitation to not jump head first then so be it, I’m not worried about being labeled a winner, because every morning I walk out the house with this black skin and make it back by evening time, I should receive the academy award for best performance, because I ducked racial profiling and police brutality to make it back alive, and I’m sorry Kanye, I don’t mean to interrupt, but my award speech would be the best of all time, and time waits for no man, but man can wait for time, so take you time, and wait those couple of seconds, cause coming in second can save you, and big brother, remember, I came second between us, but you still look up to me...
