Sylvia Plath’s Gangsta Rap Legacy

By: Jeremy Richards

Mack Daddy.

Mack Daddy you do not do.

Hootie hoo.

Every woman adores a playa’.

The crow casts his judgmental shadow

over my bootielisciousness

but you confess no less than this,

ghastly ghetto goo goo God.

I shall hit them with the hee,

by which I mean the inevitable decline

over time of my reflection in your chrome low rider,

hitting the cider like a rotting oak,

but not enough to cloak your disdain for me,

Mack Daddy,

Ach. Ach. Du.

Du hast mich.

In this picture I have of you,

the gold chains weigh you down

more than your confessions of contempt.

Come, tempt me with your fistfuls of dolla bills;

I have already swallowed the pills of your neglect,

and they taste like forty ounces of freedom

in the well of regret.

Dying is an art,

like everything else,

I do it, yeah do it,

do it until you can’t take it no more.

Sometimes I like to shake my moneymaker,

sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I prefer to be all up in your stuff,

sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I like to cradle a razor blade like a

forgotten daughter,

sometimes I’d rather not.

I’m off the hook

because I’ve hung myself with the distance

between our voices.

Ash, ash…you talkin’ trash?

Don’t make me represent

what a vengeful God has sent

to accuse me of existence.

My penance is your weak-ass game.

You shall never tame me, Mack Daddy;

the calligraphy of scars across my heart

is fashioned from the grooves

I spin on the ones and the twos.

The pain in my soul, I bought it.

The burden in my womb, I bought it.

So throw your hands up at me,

and I will trace the lineage of your sins

spread across your palms like new veins,

diggity dig my grave with your breakfast spoon.

You know why I am Supa dupa fly, too,

but Mack Daddy you will not do, you will not

ever come close to gettin all my lovin’,

Mack Daddy, if you can’t stand the heat …

then get yo’ head out of the oven.

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