The poem below is called ‘Not Today’, and I recited this poem as a rap on stage in high school for a 9/11 Memorial Event my high school did on 9/11/2011. However, I wrote this poem the previous year, on 9/11/2010. The reason I had to write this poem was because I felt really bad after hearing the conspiracies about the incident. Many people claim 9/11 to have been an inside job, sparked by the American government, so that we’d have a reason to be in the Middle East for the oil. Many believe that the it was all just a scheming, selfish plan, and that the media have been lying to the public the whole time. Because ultimately we must think: is the news really what we think it is? Is that really the facts, or 0.0125% of the facts? Its not fair at all! And in my anger, this is what I jotted down in my journal:

Not Today

If the pain brings me down, let it bring me down

but it ain’t no reason to keep this frown.

The dream won’t break cuz the colors are fake

whether the black claim they’re white or the white claim they’re brown.

You could hear the gunshots and see the blood drippin’

The battle’s not over, if you think so, you’re trippin’.

Half the people here still look back until they fall outta track,

and you’ll know they’re slippin’.

Death takes us up, down, out, and away

until a bomb shuts them up and they just could not say

anything more but “stop” or “get out of the way”

cuz we refuse to die today.

The fight won’t stop until we win the fight,

Caught a fit in the cockpit but it’s alright.

People don’t know that by the end of the night,

the bullet bites harder than a damn termite.

God can’t bless a country so racist

when people here are born with so many faces

terror proposed purposely in places

leaving no more empty spaces

Red, white, and blue,

what the hell did you do?

Take the flag down

its lost its value

They still hug, kiss, and throw their peace signs

when America’s flooded with nothing but hate crimes

Back-up, shoot, get out of the way

there goes a terrorist, blow him up today

I refuse to run, I’m gonna have to stay

yeah..okay…I’ll be gone..but that day’s not today.