Back when weed was a forbidden commodity
I knew this guy
He was foreign by birth and by attitude
A criminal from a place where that sort of thing
Was commonplace
He talked a huge game
Kind of surprised it wasn't his mouth
That ended up killing him
Grass wasn't his only thing
And it seems once you dip into one black market
You dive head first into all of them
One day he'd be dripping in money
The next he's be begging for food
The cycle surrounding him
Like a cloak of shattered dreams
I heard from somewhere
He had some sort of college education
And it was obvious
The way he spoke, the way he knew things
Some of it was the creative genius
Of survival in the streets
Formal education paid by blood money
From a place he never talked about
He was compassionate
He never did me wrong and in a way
I knew he liked and respected me
More than some
There was this darker side
This underbelly of deciet and lies
This mechanism of defense
He was proud to commit murder
If only unintentionally
And there's no doubt in my mind
That he'd turn on even me
If the price was right
How much of that was mental illness
How much of that was drugs
How much of that was situational
We stopped talking
When I didn't have to deal with criminals to get high
He tried on social media
But something told me I shouldn't
The next I heard of him
His mugshot was all over the news
And I was sad
Then came unfortunate news of his death
Details that were speculation
Even though I knew all the evil
I knew the good too
No one deserves an end like that
There was argument amongst people
Some called him garbage
Some called him a saint
I just knew the guy
And that he was a brilliant human
Taken out predictably
In an unpredictable life
