TWELVE YEARS OLD [Intro — spoken, low raspy East Coast voice] Yeah… Some kids wake up thinkin’ ‘bout school. Some kids wake up thinkin’ ‘bout breakfast. He woke up wonderin’ if he’d make it downstairs alive. Twelve years old… Listen. [Verse 1] There was a boy where the hallways smelled like smoke, Roaches by the cereal, winter with a broken coat, Woke to gunpowder driftin’ through the windowpane, Sirens sang lullabies underneath the pouring rain. Crack fiends on the corner, needles by the curb, Before he learned algebra, he learned every street word, Wrong color on your body, wrong block after dark, Could turn a mother’s little boy to candles in the park. Mama in the bedroom, chasing something through a pipe, So he learned about survival ’fore he learned about life, No food in the kitchen, overdue electric bill, Twelve years on this earth, but his eyes looked fifty still. He watched the older hustlers with the chains and clean kicks, Thought, Maybe if I do it, Mama won’t need her fix, But the street don’t give pensions, don’t care about your age, It just hands a child some money, then it locks him in a cage. [Hook — haunting soul sample / group vocals] He was only twelve years old… But the streets made him grown. He was only twelve years old… Tryna make that house a home. Mama needed saving, He thought money was the way… But when a child becomes the father, Something’s already gone astray. [Verse 2] Couple twenties in his pocket, now the fridge finally filled, New shoes for his feet, but his innocence got killed, Mama saw the money and her eyes began to change, What used to be her baby started looking like a bank. First it was, “Baby, can you help your mama out?” Then shaking hands and screaming when he said the money’s out, He’d hide it in the mattress, underneath the bedroom floor, But addiction got a hunger always begging to eat more. Teachers asked him why he’s sleeping every day in class, Nobody knew his nights were spent just trying to make cash, Other children had a curfew, cartoons before bed, He counted little folded bills while bullets flew overhead. And every dollar made him colder, every night another scar, A child ain’t supposed to know what desperation really are, He wasn’t chasing mansions, wasn’t dreaming of a Benz— He was trying to buy groceries and keep the lights on again. [Hook] He was only twelve years old… But the streets made him grown. He was only twelve years old… Tryna make that house a home. Mama needed saving, He thought money was the way… But when a child becomes the father, Something’s already gone astray. [Verse 3 — beat strips down, colder delivery] One night he came home tired, nothing left inside the stash, Laid his head against the pillow, fell asleep at last, Three in the morning— bedroom door cracked slow, Mama standing in the darkness: “Where the money at? I know.” He woke up half asleep, said, “Ma, there ain’t no more.” She started tearing through the dresser, clothes across the floor, “Don’t lie to me, boy!” “Mama, I swear that’s everything…” Then the room went silent except the shaking in her hands. Two shots… [Beat cuts completely] Neighbors heard ’em echo through the walls that night. [Verse 3 continues — piano/sample only] Blue lights painted shadows on a little boy’s bed, Twelve years of surviving—now that little boy was dead. Mama sobered for a second when she saw what she had done, Searching for another high… she lost her only son. No kingpin, no gangster, no legend from the street, Just a hungry little child with worn-out shoes upon his feet, So when you see that young boy hustling, don’t praise what you see— Ask what kind of world makes twelve-year-olds feed families. [Outro — spoken over vinyl crackle] Everybody talks about the money. Nobody talks about the empty refrigerator. Everybody talks about the dealer. Nobody asks how old he was when survival recruited him. He wasn’t born fast. Life made him run. And he was only twelve.
