The Brooklyn Chronicles

Train Of Thought

Posted on by A. Long

I live herePlatform Girl
breathing in the screech of a poorly managed system listen to the cluttered steps passing by ignoring me
while i lull myself to sleep with piss cement blocks for sheets
I am here
representative of the underbelly of these so called streets
the catacombs of an eyes wide shut city Feel me
in every devastatingly dirty train car rattling through the tunnels of my home
I cant go home
So I claim this for my own
You’ve seen me
every piece of blue plastic you sitin or pole you wrap your grubby fingers around holding on for dear life
praying to whoever that its your stop so you dont have to talk to me
Down here is a new hierarchy
i am king if the meek shall inherit the earth then i get the subway
the crying children and filthy tracks
hobos homeless guys bums and sideshow acts
the peddlers and loiters or the guys who hop up & down the aisle holding out thier hats
sharing sob stories of grave misfortune so you ll cut them some slack
people shoveling McDonalds trying not to look fat
hustlers thieves every MTA employee who takes his job way too seriously killers robbers rapists & drunks
We all are here
YOu pay admission to witness our society at its finest from Brooklyn to the Bronx and back
we are the back of a jungle laying on its back
legs open and willing for any customer that dips his card in the turnstile
turn while peering at the surface of the plate glass
we are your reflection
gurgling below the pavement craving retribution

Knuckles and Knees: Part Two

Posted on by A. Long

images (18)I fought a door once.

My hands bled for all of five minutes.

I fought a man that same day, and they didn’t feel a thing. The scabs were more interesting to look at. They made my knuckles bulge and harder than before.

Darker too.

Now my knuckles match my knees.

Burnt Brown Sugar

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I wondered if it tastes like brown sugarimages (14) the way you’d kiss my skin hungry You never told me that your lips like plump pockets knives were devised to devour my sanity These were visceral screams of pitiful self-esteem etched and bound into the seams of this epidermis because of the way you looked at it This is for the boy who paralyzed my sense of touch and any loving hands would just feel like his claws again I remember hickies on my breasts hating that you had bitten into my chest in an effort to get to my heart straight through my rib cage playful pokes of lust as you joked you’d choke the life out of me if I told I am tired from over exhausting battle but I remain a soldier forging on to inevitable victory, keep fighting until you get sick of me as fear fucks me alone in the dark            tears stream as he thrusts harder and harder                                I scream but there is no sound                                     now I lay me down to sleep                                                                I pray thee lord my soul to keep I pray, with my face buried in the sorrow filled pillow will he still be there tomorrow? I toss off covers and stumble through my black blanket looking for comfort the storm has blurred their vision and they can’t see that I have cried those raindrops look closely at my cheek, you can trace the salty path everyone’s distracted by the lightening’s wrath as it whips and cracks light across her back she lies on her back                                        cracks her legs and submits to him again and again wondering when the storm will end She reaches out wanting to touch her ancestors feel the drums as they play in the background of sweltering heat as the sunrises off the coast of New Guinea bucking the land and tonguing the plains with fire She reaches out to the water pooled on the ceiling splashes her mouth and thighs inside is a river as deep and wide as the Mississippi She reaches out but can only feel fear sweating next to her Measured my worth by my hipsIMG_94542 so I changed my walk, trying to not exist in a place that reflected a face you were so eager to kiss This is for the boys who need to learn to touch without breaking

NY Streets

Posted on by A. Long

Hosts of lonely souls coast through the streets

feel like desperation when I breathe deep

just trying to keep up with fast feet

if I stop my mind will catch thoughts that creep around my sleep

I am the gaping hole after the tower’s destruction

nothing but blood and hollow exoskeleton

hot to the touch so I must still be alive

But how could anything have survived

buch a vicious blow was so unexpected

It took my hope, structure, foundation when it crash landed

the phoenix reborn among these swaying rooftops

shake off ash and debris

where my heart beat stops is the location of the excavation

Dig me a new soul that’s not half-empty

with repatriation, false devotion, love and harmony

rebuild me in your eyes as how I’m meant to be

In memory of those who continue to die all around me

in these streets, malleable like hot leaded fingers

that grab at son’s sneakers

pushing him to the edge

the city barely gets by on integrity

push him inside, it’s dark down here

Broken back and crumpled spirit

I am the hole in the chest of concrete that can’t be fixed

Sublime in its suckiness

Does that make me beautiful as I coast through the city’s mist

brushing off unhappiness as the sun peeks from behind stratus clouds

ashy smoke bags hazy in their existence

as they hang in the sky over us

the sounds of sirens unheeded

so we burn our city to the bone with our music

The absence of those well-acquainted with the night

leave holes in already unfulfilled souls

He Said

Posted on by A. Long

He said I am the Anti-Christ, as a smile slipped its way across his face. images (4)

The pupil of his eyes twitched and danced hastily anxious to inflict the commands cooking in his mind. I part my lips to stop time to listen, flex my muscles to bend walls around my will be done he whispered as he hugged me almost lovingly. Mark a new beginning in the sands of society. Tie a broom to the necks of the unfaithful to sweep away the steps of the unworthy. He paced the room beaming with the brilliance of his plans holding the world’s fate like a freshly peeled orange in the palm of his hands, and in panicked breaths I could smell the citrus scented death. But, my face was placid and unimpressed by this man, who not too long ago used to grasp my hand.

Now he’s moved to the doorway triumph in his stride, a lion’s pride, a devil hides. Raises his arms and proclaims himself king. And I his daughter as future queen. I stare at his imagined victory over our little hallway, disheartened laughing at the notion of crazy. Just then he jumps forward wrestling with the world’s shadow, mumbling curses as he punches the plaster while quoting something that sounds like what satanic verses aught to. Accustomed and unafraid I exist only as a witness to the effects of cell bars and failed dreams, to un-addressed depression and loneliness that prefers the company of a bottle, to unabashed character flaws when Daddy should have been hero. He has won the battle, cheering excitedly standing firmly the savior. The head of anarchy singing loudly louder until he’s screaming shaking the roots of our building but he is a human being.

From the base of my soul I will smile because he’s smiling. There have been days when the light I see now was a smashed candle on the canvas above his chin wax and wick mixed into the hate and bitterness. From the core of my being I will swallow hard & laugh with his laughter at the powers that we will have as the Anti Christ and partner because I love my father albeit his mind doesn’t have all the chapters. Gladly charter my sanity for him, not to sanction his actions but because I understand it is hard to walk down the road as a large black man. Constant surveillance will make you consider God’s eyes less and less, make you wonder, should I answer the approaching officer or just nod my head yes. Yes I know I fit the profile. Through the procedure of cuffing gruff hands that controlled the sands of time are the ones that would firmly clasp mine, reading Miranda I trace memories along the lifelines of his palms.

They never hurt me.

Placed behind his double wide back. Maybe beat mercilessly the wooden face of a board, the weighted burden of anger heavy eradicated as knuckle met door. Wait, you have a self proclaimed king in your custody. He may have hid the broken bottles of his pride and shattered his relationship with God but I still need him to be the boulder in a world that rattles endlessly. Give me a chance at stability. Enough women already suffer from men coming in and out of their lives constantly.

images (5) This story unfortunately has no ending

Just the unknown future of a world that reduces its fathers to shambles

How can he help raise children when a broken soul just produces a broken one?

 

Knuckles and Knees: Part 1

Posted on by A. Long

My uncle, who is not really related to me, says that I shouldn’t have black knees. That no man wants a woman with black knees. I am confused by this, as I sit on the stoop listening to him laugh in his throat with another uncle of mine whom I am sure is not related to me. They seem to agree. One is a drug dealer. Overdue for his next bid and real estate man and property investor and owner of his own construction company. The other is notorious for his drinking binges and odd sightings around the neighborhood with packages of baby wipes that aren’t brand name. I say, but I am a black girl and I already have black knees. They continue to chuckle at me.

images (3)I am lost.

But I have black knees don’t I, I am black. You are brown. Women with black knees have scars from rubbing their knees on the ground. No one will want you if they look like that. He points to the other non-uncle’s skin, dark as charcoal. I am not charcoal, but I am brown. When did I become brown? Besides there’s other kinds of scars I’m talking about that you’re too young to know about. I am nine. You shouldn’t anyways, he says, and then swigs whatever it is he’s drinking. I played football a lot with the boys on the block, that’s why my knees are darker, and they know it already. I’m not talking about boys, he says, I mean men. Men like them?

When you get older men don’t want to deal with that kind of baggage. You all scarred and scuffed up from other dudes or games or whatever, and now he has to deal with your blackness. Wear stockings from now on or something, just trust me. By this point in the conversation Daddy has descended the stairs, and upon seeing the confusion in my little face, asks what we were talking about. Non-uncle number one, the lighter one, tells him. Daddy curses him out and punches him into the street. I wonder deeply. Why can’t women be dark and wanted, why can’t men deal with her scars? Daddy comes back to tell me that my uncle is not really my uncle at all and that he’s a sexist, nasty fool that I should never take advice from. My Daddy is a correctional officer at Rikers Island prison, he was an all-star running back in high school and a college drop out, he has made many mistakes but loves my mom and he loves me.

157d903a50054f232787527c5cd57da3He says that my legs are fine the way they are.

And if not, then find a man in life who likes scars, brownness, and the edges of blackness.  

 

Midnight Run In Brooklyn

Posted on by A. Long

WINGATE PARK IS COLD AT NIGHT

I RAN THERE

NO SPECTATORS BUT THE

LONELY STREETLIGHTS

THE SOUNDS MY SNEAKERS MAKE

AS THEY ECHO IN EMPTY BASKETBALL COURTS

I RUN THERE

I RUN PAST THERE

I TRAMPLE THERE UNTIL THERE IS NO THERE

IT IS ONLY ME

Home

CIRCLING GREEN SPOTTED BROWN GARBAGE GRASS

& BUILDINGS

CURIOUS AS THEY ARE LEAN AWAY

I BREATHE INVISIBLE LIQUID ETHER

THAT’S SOAKING IN MY LUNGS

& WILL PROBABLY EXPLODE ANY MINUTE

I KEEP RUNNING

WISHING TO VOMIT EVERY

AMBITION I HAVE OF WINNING

BUT WHO AM I KIDDING

EVEN IF I DID

I’D KEEP RUNNING

TO BEAT MY MOCKING SHADOW

THAT’S ALWAYS AHEAD OF ME

AHEAD OF ME ARE WIRED FENCES

POLICE HEADLIGHTS ON MY HEELS

I RUN

THE INSIDE OF MY ANKLES THROB

THE PAIN IS KNOCKIN IN MY BRAIN

LIKE THE BASS BLASTIN OFF THAT CAR DOWN THE BLOCK

MY FRAME IF SILHOUETTED ONTO THE RED TRACK

I CANT STOP & I CANT GO BACK

I RUN

FOR THE SHADOW AT MY SIDE THAT’S LOSING

I RUN

FOR THE POLICE HEADLIGHTS THAT WON’T CATCH ME

I RUN

UNTIL THE BRUTELY CRACKED PAINT ON THE CONCRETE WALLS

FADES AWAY

THE SOUND OF DADDY CHASTISING 3 YRS OLDS

DISSIPATES

ROACHES IN THE KITCHEN

DISINTEGRATE

OR UNTIL MY LEGS BREAK

MY SHOULDERS ACHE

I SEE STARS

& CAN ONLY COUNT 15

BUT I KEEP RUNNIN

& RUNNING

& RUNNIN