Vincent “V” Pierce
Vince grew up in Newburgh, New York. As a teen, V moved down south to North Carolina where he studied music and played on multiple basketball teams, moving back to New York In his early twenties. V was robbed at gunpoint; a bullet put him in a wheelchair and wound up at Coler. Today, V’s focus lies in his 10-year-old daughter, Nuatej, and in music, producing his first album, OPEN DOORS Reality Poets Vol.1, in 2019. His poetry and writings have been published in Wheeling & Healing: A Poetry Anthology Edited by OPEN DOORS Reality Poets. he’s a recipient of the Center For Cultural Innovation Grant with which he started a music program aimed to keep youth off the streets and in the studio.
Stories
poems
Karma
I know how it is to hear them shots fired
don't know if I'm going to live or die
Hit in the neck I ain't even feel the burn
paralyzed instantly
Praying to God please don't take me now
I got a little girl to look after
and I'm not trying to look after her from the sky
Everything I've done bad in life flashing before me
Karma on one side saying I got ya ass now
God on the other side saying
Remember that voice that was in the back of your head,
telling you to stop selling those drugs?
That the ones you call your friends,
ain't gonna be there when you really need them,
That if you keep living by the gun,
you're really gonna die by the gun?
Yeah that was me.
Now you lay here, body limp,
Begging God please man, please
But just like they say, I'm a forgiving God
So sit in this chair my son
Learn life lessons
And let every single one of them
That came after you know
That life is a blessing
and never ever ever ever
take life for granted.
KALIEF BROWDER
Locked up for a crime he didn’t commit.
I didn’t do it so home I will be as soon as I can explain.
Never been in jail so bait he was to inmates and C.O.’s.
Mama didn’t have the bail money so in jail he stayed.
Court date after court date, no one trying to hear he didn’t do it.
Now he sits in his cell starting to build up rage.
Everybody around him sees he’s weak.
No gang protection so prey he became.
Fight after fight, he’s coming to look like the problem.
So gang assault after gang assault by the men in blue.
Not the Crips.
I’m talking bout the men in blue that’s supposed to be there to protect you
But instead they beat you and throw you in solitary confinement.
Days turn into months, months turn into years,
Sitting in a cell no one to talk to,
You start to build a mental rage in a 6 x 8 cell, twenty-three hours a day,
You have thoughts about taking your own life until you really try it.
C.O.’s rush in, cut you down and beat you for trying to take your own life.
The day finally comes after three years of being in the closest thing to hell
For a backpack that you didn’t take.
The charges are dropped.
Now, you’re in the real world thinking what do I do,
Not used to everyone moving so freely,
Not used to society.
You can’t take it.
So you go back to what you’re used to,
Lock yourself in the house cuz that’s the only thing that seems right
And a thought comes to your head,
There is no one here to stop me, so you take your own life.
I am Kalief Browder because I really experienced that life,
So until I die it’s Rest in peace Kalief Browder.
Grew Up
I grew up
Sugar milk drinking, corn beef hash eating, meatloaf loving
Iceberg wearing, bb gun shooting
Only thing that scared me was the mice
I will run so fast look like I was skating on ice
In the heat of the night watching
Mama didn’t have it so it was paper food stamps she was collecting
Now I grew up
Got tired of hearing mama ask the landlord for an extension
So it was illegal money I was getting
Dice rolling
Girl after girl not caring about a feeling
Just worried about the money and drug dealing
That got to spending plenty of nights in a cage
Started to build up a rage
Twenty three hours in a cell thought I was going to go insane
All I can hear was grandma saying
God will get you through anything so
On my knees I got and prayed
I grew up…
OH Do I Miss
OH do I miss getting kissed standing up stretching then going to take a piss
OH now do I miss standing up taking a shower
OH now do I miss taking you to the park
Seeing the joy on your face as you chase the geese
OH now do I miss being looked at as normal and not stared at as a mirror
OH now do I wish everything was normal
Not having to take a shower on a slab as if you was dead
OH now do I miss feeling the water down my head
To not feeling it at all
OH now do I wish I would not have took life for granted
Now I’m sitting and wishing I can do the simplest thing
Like tie my shoe ain’t life crazy
How your past life can predict your future
I made my bed so I’m going to lay in it as comfy possible
And smile cause now I know you can’t take life for granted…
Cold World
They say you have a right to remain silent but where I’m from your black skin color already confessed to the crime you have a right to a lawyer if not the court will appoint you one but it don’t matter we all work together anyway on the ground face in the dirt I can’t breathe stop resisting let me see your hands bang bang bang here we go again he was reaching for that colt 45 inhaler ain’t it crazy that the last thing most black young men taste is dirt which will be their final resting place ain’t it crazy that if that same cop gets killed he’s a hero I wonder if the tears from black families is what keeps the graveyards’ grass green I wonder why we live in a world full of hate I wonder if black mothers are closer to God because they had to lay to rest their only begotten son I wonder how long will it take for black young men’s skin to become bulletproof cause we’re so close to the gun.