Forever Young, Jae October
/Black Boy
Your legacy will make no mention of a killer
Your neck will not hang from a vine in history’s mist
The stars align to the frequency of your breathing pattern
Black boy find the will to persist.
I see your kind a lot
Standing by the corner store on the block
On Benning Road,
Or Nostrand Ave rocking a fitted or a durag.
You laugh through your pain and your teeth hurt from grinding.
Your walk like death is on your shoulders
Your designer sneaks step softly over third rails
You look like you just left your own funeral.
I know that look all too well.
You are so noble,
So brilliant,
So afraid,
And so vulnerable
The context is dangerous and the narrative is usual
You make friends with time because dying an old man is suitable.
You dream weave perfect pyramids in your mind.
Tackled body
Guns are drawn
You hold down the block like Ptah on his throne.
Shackled wrists
Prison song
Fear weaves an unjust web
Your blackness is vast as the sea
Your melanin is more valuable than a bag of skittle and a canned iced Tea.
You are hope
You are brave
You are earth and clay
Heroic in the way that father’s choose to stay.
You are hard but hurting
You are Malcolm X in dreads
You are a tuff gong slap boxing spirits to redemption songs.
Remember your wounds are not disasters in your soul
Remember the order of your cosmos is in the pose of a pharaoh
Act accordingly
Talk about that time you were eight that makes you shake uncontrollably.
Talk about the time you were nine and your best friend died.
Talk about...
The deep fears and clenched fists
The deep breaths when death grips.
Scream to the heavens that you need to be free.
If someone tries to stop you
Look at them pensively, smile big, and tell them that...
You refuse to be a high five in history’s jive
Never another black rat trapped
Tell them you are a battle cry.
A buck fifty on the face of shame
A new hymn to a dancing God
Tell them...
You will not be 40oz of Bo jangles doing a boom box jig.
Willie lynched to the limbs of a slave masters soul.
They will not murder you like Sean Bell and Amadou Diallo,
No!
Tell them you are a dreamer
Drenched in the stench of eighteen summers
Trying to make dollars out of what makes cents.
And trying to keep some sense when you get them dollars
Tell them...
How grateful you are.
That your ancestors kicked through Jim Crow’s doors barefoot just so you can wear shoes.
Tell them about your brilliance and your dominant DNA.
Tell them society might mess around, but nature does not play
Be proud like Garvey in Harlem
Be great like Robeson at The Savoy.
And if you’re asked why you’re smiling
Tell them...
My legacy will make no mention of a killer
My neck will not hang from a vine in history’s mist
The stars align to the frequency of my breathing pattern
I will persist because I am infinite.
Jae October, [lifted this from his profile] "Poet. Pretty talker. God body goon. Street intellect. Introvert with extrovert tendencies. Habitual line stepper. The jam in your jelly roll."
I couldn't say it better.
Deciphering prophecies through poem(s) and saying peace at Jae October World