I walk

Hearts beat slow like molasses

Classes cant teach this

Cold flashes as wind passes

Little faces pressed up against glasses

Intense invincibility crashes

I walk

Through poets snaps

Heads high under fitted caps

Down piss stairwells and rainbow train maps

Past tense strangers as litter makes laps around the tracks

I walk

By gangs of accents that flood these streets

Red and black pleats on the scarves that match the weaves

Heats me headphones spill with fierce beats

Cars breathe

I walk

Seeing encroaching high risers and pushy condos forcing out mom and pop stores

Franchises envying the space across the project mother’s floors

While workers huddle exiled nicotine in front of their doors

Corner hustlers beg for more

I walk

Dreadlocks swing free as sirens sing

Birds screech while fluttering cross musical intersections that play for buildings

I walk

Triumphant stut past soup kitchen line where my father spent some time

Anklet bells chime like inmate shackles as they echo in the officers eyes that watch mines

Pupils black like trigger happy minds patrolling the confines of my borough

I walk

Past Brooklyn roots sucking memories out these trees

Fleets of preachers moving boulders

Africa seats himself amid the sunset on his knees

Praying for the priests in the country of nativity

I walk

Flipping my hair to portrait still water in a writer’s paradise

Helicopter star lights freckle the night hates on my smile lit bright like a torch carrier’s stride the day feels right

I walk

It seems all roads lead to the county of kings

Where drunks marry these blocks children liquor fiends

& conceit glistens off door knocker earrings

The hood stings like

Corruption flowing into my dreams

Like the sound of a smack to the back of the head as it rings

Like 10 000 mosquitoes bites on one of them hot ass summer nights

I walk

Admiring gargoyles that architects took time to chip into existence

Too bad they don’t exist in neighborhoods where copper skin is plentiful sense

Their meant to keep out bad spirits

This painful shutout we spray paint onto the breast of our buildings

Given shades of cool mints and reds so when the sun hits

It sprouts yellows and oranges in different hues

So beautiful that in blissful unawareness the bricks drink  our pride

so we are unashamed to walk in the daytime

© Perception 2011, Ariama Long