Welcome Home

Home is where-

Things have to change.

Memories of yesterday sever me from kindness, truth is a lie, an envied as a way of life, where neighbors’ friends and family remain close despite disagreement/ Where they make peace/ for the living/ resting with eyes open, looking up without meeting a judge, contemplating my present/a future gift that doesn’t box my spirit.

Home is where distorted opinions don’t become popular cult followings. Where Churches housing pedophiles/ tithing for safe travel are met with the same fury of their god/damned hypocrites aired out for condemning gay and interracial vows.

Where patriots don’t serve as undercover bigots, flagging America to bag my body, saluted with shots heard across the world busy stating control of what I owned from birth.

A world where my favorite superhero symbols aren’t transformed into terrorist logos/ and Black youth don’t need tattooed wings to feel it’s the only way to reach their dreams.

Where the hood gets the love, deserving geniuses culturing the world/ can plan ahead instead of plotting to stay above ground/ entrepreneurs aren’t marketed as violent while tyrant businessmen are idolized.

Home is where sweet deals don’t poison water and food/ aiding bad tempers to expand weight/ ruptured vessels filled with the heart to hate. Where our loftiest goal isn’t finding a way to escape/ banks and judges credit us with time we can’t race/ Where killing innocence for sport doesn’t make you a member of the board/ where harming blacks insures pay, and breadwinners of low-income families become dinner.

Home is Where the endgame of balling doesn’t leave me laid up with shots/ Where taking mine doesn’t put me behind steel and concrete blocks/ where ghetto and urban ain’t the new N-word/ where opioid’s complex is solved before passing admissions/ where the government doesn’t school US A Black Road is to blame for their perdition.

Where severity of a crime determines the sentence. Where the first words we learn ain’t R.I.P. GO- where they don’t honor our class by advancing us to death row. Where survivors ain’t skiddish/ lined as skeletons, hollowed- living across from billion-dollar cemeteries in gutted boroughs/ designed by snow glossed eyes/ with high-spirited kidneys dying to sleep off ptsd.

Home is where people who need help and ask are written off as the weak tax/ rats and roaches infest systems/ creating symptoms/ wars/ lifelong victims have to show and prove they are broken for assistance. Where teaching a month of my despair rates your allegiance.

Where I don’t have to raise hands or a fist in order to live long enough to make it out the crib/ where the hand I hold might be the mate for my soul/ dancing leads to anniversaries/ birthdays/ baby weight/ graduations/ real-estate where I can look in a stranger’s eyes/ extend my hand without seeing my life ending/ or pray for a new beginning.

Where women can control their own, without fighting for forgiveness of escort driven/ Viagra dependent limp bodied men sticking to the bible/ plans of women begging for survival/ where I can watch a movie/ read a book/ see the news/ play a game of chess/ black pieces aint made second at best.

Where my family ain’t infiltrated because of imagination. Where I can gather/ discuss business without getting my head split/ and my self- defense aint tread over and picketed.

Where my dogs can roam free/ animals don’t receive more money/ love/ and rights than darker skinned humans shining under protected police lights.

Where my homecoming aint determined by prison knowledge/ I don’t have to choose between feeding my family and college- the price of Urban Genocide where the apartments aint set-up like cell blocks/ experimenting on humans as livestock.

My version of home is where the world stops treating my death as a test. So, I can live my life without being on the run. Where I can raise my daughter and sons. Where I bury my parents and grands/ instead of the earth holding my casket being strengthened from their tears.

Home is Where?..

Grizzly Gentleman.