A Poem for the Youth Voter

By Jay Smooth

OK people
We really got our sights on it
Bottom of the ninth, two outs and two strikes on it
But we need to keep focused and be patient
Do not get complacent
Stop your celebration
Because if this game is fair they wouldn't call it politics
And the mavericks can still pull off a lot of tricks
This other team is well known to cheat
So do you really think history won't repeat
at the sweetest moment
as we were just about the seal the deal
so close that we can feel it
That's when they always try to steal it.
History shows that young voters almost never turn out
They're hoping that all your passion's about to burn out.
They're hoping you believe the hype and think that it's all over
and spend election day on the sofa watching  Oprah.
So before you start letting your vision getting clouded
listen to this and think really hard about it:
Imagine that one day your kids want to ask you
where were you
when in this moment in history passed.
And we have to tell our daughters
and all our sons
we stayed home on the day Obama almost won.
Imagine telling them we had it in our hands
we could taste it, after all those years
our ancestors chased it
Finally we had one chance and it was wasted
because you spend the day playing Madden in the basement.
How do you think you're going to feel getting stuck in that role?
You're going to feel like a motherfucking asshole.
So let's make a plan
that we won't let them try and knock it out of our hands like Leon Lett
We're not beyond threats
They could still pull a fast one
The only poll that counts is the last one
Let's show the clowns we can last twelve rounds
Stand firm, hold it down
till the last bell sounds
So when that day comes and you address your kids
your can look down with pride and say
yes we did.


A video of this poem can be found here.