Think I'm a start riding around with a gun on my hips,
Chicago Sun is down, need a Blunt on my lips, paranoia
...
Concrete Gardens: If My Siblings Were To Ever Become Roses
Think I'm a start riding around with a gun on my hips,
Chicago Sun is down, need a Blunt on my lips, paranoia
on my mind, though our pray is never missed. Because
a lot of boys die and
my brother's may still be next, told him bullets don't
know borders, you got a good head on your shoulders,
but I'm losing mine fearing you may lose yours, Corner
boys use gun shots to stay warm out there, God forbid
if my brother ever gets cold out there, alone in these
streets that look more like cemeteries, for then Id be
statued on a corner with his face plastered on my
shirt, I get high and I define him in my sorrows, before
I choke, in this poem, I am trying to find the way to
cope with nameless bullets, for my sisters list of dead
friends read 67 this year, and id be dumb to write a
poem about the 68th, but I can hold her hand as she
pores jack into the flowers, Daniel's boom, dandelions,
and in Chicago we got helicopter gardens they be
filling us like our blood is fertilizer, like my skin dark
brown enough to bloom Rose's, like our soul is body
baked for good balloon weights, so that way we dont
take up space, we at least hold down our own, but
war on the street corner, who are you gonna blame if
somebody gets killed again, if my brother kills a brother
the cycle just restarts, I know he wont ever mean to,
but the means never justify the ends. we try to pretend
that flowers can bloom in dark rooms. killers mamas
hands never planted hate but cops making sure our
seeds never see the light of day anyway so yea some
would blame the killer but see me, I blame the glock,
I blame the cop failing to show up when a life was on
the clock, but maybe that speaks to something greater,
maybe death and blackness, a little truth that upholds
such a comparison caters to the hood, as of black and
browns boys are born to die, rebirthed to metaphor
to a bloody rose thorn with anger ready to attack any
reaching hand attempting to admire its beauty now I
get it why people lust after the most hurt and in a city
like this how do you cope when you know the killer
and the killed too and they both just like you, last night
I prayed for a murderer, I prayed for his victim cuz the
same way mother didnt raise her son to die another
did not raise her son to kill him now we got paranoia
on our mind since our baby brothers died we write love
notes and get high hope they make it to the sky cuz in
a city like this you cruise till you fall till the sun starts
screaming and popo I never called on a block so hot
know yo dos and do nots cuz you'll never know what
will make your heart stop.
-Melinda Hernandez & Angel Smith