Concrete Gardens: If My Siblings Were To Ever Become Roses Poem by Don Hill

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