Trouble In Paradise Poem by Stayin Song

By Josh Rodriguez

There’s trouble in paradise,
There’s trouble everywhere, really,
But that’s neither here nor there.
Ignorance blossoms when it’s nourished
Daily, and everyone knows that in this town
Ignorance is given plenty nourishment.
In a town of drunkenness, cigarettes,
Smackheads—it’s hard to believe
That those who want to better their lives
Are damned.
We want out, they want in—neither party gets their wish.

We could trade places, we could, really.
They could come here, we could go there,
We could find out what it’s like to not live in paradise,
We could find out what it’s like to not be nourished.
We could give up our drunkenness, cigarettes
And smack and leave this town
For good and abandon paradise
For oppressed, downtrodden lives.
We could finally get our wish,
We could leave and be damned
To a life where we get little nourishment, but much oppression.

But honestly, where’s the fun in getting our wish?
This town is full of hollow words and free oppression.
We don’t know what we want, we only know what we wish
Would come and change our lives.
We die from drunkenness, smack and smoking too may cigarettes-
They die from having the bad luck of living there.
We say we care, but we don’t really.
I’ve been all around this godforsaken town
And saw the hypocritical people here being well nourished,
But these are the very same who can’t give up just a fraction of their nourishment
To help the ones they always say they will—the damned