Our Side of 138

I want to love you like after school playing video games.

Beating your ass in sonic that one time and every time before that.

I want to love you like racing bikes down steep hills and not crying in front of you.

The street lights will come on and we will be in that house.

Our mammas will think we trying to avoid an ass-whooping.

We will know it is so we can do it again tomorrow.

But this is only temporary.

Soon our hearts will race and our lungs will be out of breath for reasons others will "C" their way out of.

Them street lights might come on and we won't care.

The sky will turn yellow and orange, and I will be holding your hand while no one is looking

- and you won't tell.

I will love you like secret hideouts in-between bushes.

When my heart only raced hearing the echo from 100 Mississippi’s.

I will love you like times gone by on summer Suns.

Mamas yelling to stop coming in and out ha house, wasting the AC.

I will love you like I always imagined.

But this is only temporary.

Because poverty, racism, abuse, neglect, and pain introduced themselves far too many times.

The I love yous don’t flow like sipping from a garden hoe.

They are rocky and bitter on my tongue.

When most days the I love yous stumble off my lips like boozy footsteps at 3 AM.

Even, still, I will love you.

I will love you like night drives down Upper Riverdale Road.

Stops to the corner store on the weekends filled our lungs with air.

We inhaled the sweet release of freedom flavored herb wraps.

Juicy J will be the narrator of our love story, but I’ll be having more fun.

Finally I will love you like before things made sense.

Like childhood and adulthood dont mimic the same despair.

But, this is also only temporary.

With you there are laughs and giggles and bashfulness turning my ego on it’s head.

My body has learned to contort itself into your deepest fantasies.

There, I will love you like I know how and like I know better.

I will love you like it’s easy though I know it isn’t

-and it will be beautiful.