I found this forum some time ago and I recently remembered this poetry section. For a long time I’ve been needing to express feelings that I’ve long kept buried. Most of my brothers express themselves writing lyrics but that’s just not for me I like to see the words on a page (or screen).I’m not educated and I’m just pulling what’s inside me out for the world to see and I hope it’s good enough for your fine forum. I want this to be a snapshot of the black experience in the uskkk, my journey through life and my lessons about what love really is. Here’s the first installment.
My Neighborhood
Through the boy’s young eyes the neighborhood seems vast and nearly endless.
But of course it was only a few square blocks of typical inner-city
Mamma raised four boys the best she could while dealing with her problems the pipe was her forever demon
What Mamma couldn’t or wouldn’t teach us the neighborhood would.
The neighborhood was full of opportunities and dangers and the boy pushed his limits
Soon the boy learned that certain people wanted to contain him
They wanted to hold him down, they wanted to suppress his ambition and his success
If the boy wanted to survive he couldn’t live by the white man’s law
The boy would take what he wanted, learning to survive and before long he would thrive
Of course the white man would try to hold the boy down
Eventually the white man and his system put the boy in a cage like they’ve done for centuries
But they could not break the boy and he used their system against them
By the time the boy left the white mans system he was full of rage and ready to tear down that system
He was ready to take the freedom he was owed and the respect he was entitled
He was about to become a man, a Black Man