Black Boys
Location
In Baltimore,
We have lost 92 of our men
What’s stopping me
From being number 93
This poem is for number 43
Michael Mayfield
ROTC student,
And gifted baseball player,
His arm,
Was his rifle
Looking down his barrel
We never saw Michael’s pitch,
And Michael,
Never saw graduation
So I want to ask the bullet,
When you were sent rippling through his skull
What was it like to be in a museum of awesome for just a few seconds
And not have a name of who you were looking for?
Cause Michael was a soldier,
Taken by arms,
I wish my arms could hug him back into existence,
That our cries for him
Could flood the past
So Michael could wash up in the future
In Baltimore, we black boys
Know bullets
Like mosquitos
In Baltimore, opportunity does not call
For boys
With black skin,
And change,
Is only something we find between cushions
I realize, it is hard to escape what we have been placed into
Cause many of us are shooting for stars
With feet still shackled to the ground
We want to be wizards,
Make magic with our lives,
But are given heat instead
Unloading bullets into each other
Instead of knowledge
We black boys are given hoops dreams
To chase
Why can’t we ever escape the court
Maybe,
It’s cause they like to watch us play basketball
For how we have mastered the art of hanging in the air
They think that we got it from our ancestors
We wear chains rapped around our necks
Like we are trying to connect to our roots
Growing up,
My school told me they were trying to get us ready
For the real world
So why did the windows have bars on them
Like we were graduating to a life on parole
Maybe,
This is just a game of hide and seek with successful
But in Baltimore,
All I was taught was cops and robbers,
Those roses are red,
And violets are blue,
So are police lights
So run before they find you
Cause in Baltimore,
People watch The Wire
To understand our lives
But they don’t know a damn thing
About me
And the wire
I walk on.