SPLIT THIS ROCK: Poems of Provocation & Witness Princess of Controversy   NO MORE I’m tired, you’re tired, we don’t want no more No more hustling like a slave working your 9 to 5 I’ve been hustling this music game but I’m still barely alive So what’s the difference in the grind? We still mouth to cheek Tryna make a dollar st-st-stretch from week to week I done seen it before, now I’m seeing it again We play the lottery for 20 years and most never win There she goes again on tangent, she’s mad fed up You picture this and then try to keep your head up Brothers life sped up, he be harassed by the pigs Soon as he make a dime on prime time and his shine is big No more brothers killing brothers under the illusion of war Put down guns men, what are you fighting for? Put down guns men, what are you fighting for? No more baby mamas screaming that they proud to be Without a father in the home shame history No more identity crisis that’s leading up to promiscuity Searching for daddy in your man, that’s not unity Ignoring the tv like it doesn’t plant seeds Dancing to that B-I-(***) like they not talking bout me No more fake pregnancies cause you’re scared that he’ll leave And the truth of the matter is you can’t control where he be Sisters in the streets, we don’t even speak Cause our insecurities shoot from our head to our feet No more young girls lost trying to find their beauty Momma take some time everyday to say she’s a cutie Cause she needs your love and she need your hugs and She needs all that before she can truly love a man No more low standards, no more abuse No more distorted images, for them we have no use No more of my folks in the cold with no job No more of my folks screaming life is so hard No more tragedies like in New Orleans Dirty politricks, now it’s time to get clean No racism, no more poverty No more freaking wars, how bout unity? When we gon listen? We can pimp the system Tired of being victim, I don’t want no more I’m tired, you’re tired, we don’t want no more   Melissa Princess Best, aka Princess of Controversy, is currently working on her second album, awaiting release. She has appeared on the national television reality show Stage Black (currently airing on TV One), HBO’s television series The Wire, and in such plays as "Joe Turner’s Come and Gone," "Redemption Ritual," "The Colored Museum," and "The Amen Corner." Princess has served as performance technique instructor for YWDEP (Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project) and facilitated workshops with Blackout Arts Collective, Critical Resistance, Guerilla Poets Insurgency, Sol and Soul, and Upward Bound. She has also run workshops at several schools and colleges. Princess is a national advocate for AIDS awareness, after losing her father to the disease in 1991. She affectionately goes by her middle name to pay homage to the man who named her years before and proclaimed she would be a “star.”   Published in Volume 9, Number 1, Winter 2008.