The Fire Squad Poem Summary

I grew up in a place where many kids of my demographic didn’t have much therefore the crime rate was high and the employment rate was low. I’ve always worked hard to get the things I wanted. Most of the things I wanted were expensive so I would save enough money to get what I wanted and I would wake up on Saturday mornings with joy in my heart at that I’m able to get something on my own. When the author starts off the poem there is joy in his morning the same as mine, then it all changes when he runs into a woman he had a previous relationship with in the mall. As they’re catching up he finds out where she stays and how she had a new person of interest. If I was in his shoes, I would’ve gotten angry when I found out where she was staying even
though we weren’t together. That event within the poem altered the mood. Once the ex-friend talks about how she gets hit by her new boyfriend the mood starts to grow even darker. At this moment, putting myself in the author’s shoes, I would’ve been furious but the ex-friend then light heartedly jokes about making a pot of grits to throw on her oppressor.
Then the author jokes about the Al Green incident in a satirical way that lightens the conversation. I would’ve done the same thing in the conversation because no one wants to see someone that they have love for in a predicament of hopelessness. Therefore instead of addressing the problem at hand we laugh it off and sweep it under a rug. Like the artist J. Cole states in his Fire Squad verse “every good joke contains true sh*t”. Even though she was joking about it, the thought of overpowering her abuser probably rang in her head plenty of times. Now the poem takes an imagery shift across the street to a boy kicking a dog in the sneakers that the author wants. This piece of the poem brought me to the realization that he still hasn’t copped the sneakers, and he has now transferred his anger towards something other than the fact that he doesn’t have the sneakers and that his ex-friend is getting abused in the same home she lives. Also I can see the stray dog being a symbol of the woman and the author can’t take the thought of anymore abuse, meanwhile his ex-friend just can’t take the abuse –
period.
Earlier in the poem the author mentions the woman has a gift in her bag. When I read this I immediately began to think about who the gift is for. Maybe it was for her new love since she mentioned to the author that he was a tough habit to kick. I feel as though she mentioned that he was a tough habit to kick to let him know that she was still attached once the relationship was over. With the relationship ending she needed somebody to connect to and fill the void that was no longer present. A few more stanzas down after the author asked the joke about Al Green, the woman states she is on a new life kick. They were all signs that something was going to happen within the story. When the woman pulls the gift out the bag . . . it’s a gun. One, I would’ve thought the lady had plans of killing her oppressor or even the author who had joy in his heart because he was getting a new pair of shoes while she’s struggling through life still trying to find her way. Shockingly the woman kills herself.