This piece is from the INDY’s Portrait of Pride series. You can read the rest of the pieces here.
Not a lot who know me, very few who use my first name.
Very few who knew the monicker ‘fore it incurred fame
Funny, guess I always thought the streets would bring the worst pain.
On the contrary, I been struggling with worse things.
I carry myself concealed.
All the things I sit on,
Is kindling for a hit song.
The piece de resistance,
Is how I learned to flip losas.
Momma couldn’t save me from the pitfalls.
Expression, round my way, it came from stick talk.
These bars help with suppression,
Candy coating my repression.
It’s hard to trudge my way through all these days,
if we’re making confessions.
My brother and I aren’t speaking.
I can sense that he’s stressing,
But I’m stuck on beef we could’ve chopped, where’s the delicatessen?
But I couldn’t peep the lesson,
So I chose to forgo speaking.
In an instant, I was breathless.
Out the blue, my bro conceded.
Lucid dreaming, heart is heaving,
Emotions growing effervescent.
Ugly grieving,
Guess I always thought we’d have another session.
Truly, what is a wasted breath?
Took a lot for gifted when the distance was a couple steps
I always thought another set of downs would be guaranteed.
We were running the game, now they’re calling in the special teams
All this time, petrified the streets would send my brother up,
I’m on the frontline, ready to make sure who ever slid slept.
Come to find it was just his time, and he had done enough.
Now I pour a few adornments to earth, until it hurts less.
Comment on this story at [email protected].