To the woman who birthed me

Welcome! she said.

Perfectly pleated skirt fastened around her hips

made for her. Drape seamlessly over her white legs.

My eyes dart away.

beyond the desks

assembled in a circle

to the window

to the streets that catch me when I fall short

to the half-way house stoop my mama sits on

all day long.

I see her. But she does not see me. Still.

Pastel nightgown hugs her curves.

How come she never hugged me?

bummed cigarette hugged between her lips.

You poison boy.

Chair legs scrape the tiled floor. Uniformed drones.

Stoic and divided. Quiet. Pencil sharpeners work overtime

on the first day of school. My back faces the window.

I was just six years old.

Patchy green carpet quilted the hood.

Barreling over me with malt liquor breath.

Don’t you walk away from me boy.

Bruised eyes saw her clearly that day.

Sirens cry out.

Stop beatin’ dat boy ‘Cinta.

My ears can’t hear. My eyes can’t see. My heart doesn’t believe.

She says I need to know how to write.

For what? someone asks.

The fresh-out-the-box pencil feels foreign between my fingers.

For life. Resumes. Emails. Fun!

There is no privilege in the streets.

How will I walk home? I rub two quarters together.

Government cheese sandwiches ain’t free.

I paid for that

with the blood from my cut lip

with fear prowling front yards

with my motherless home

with my aunt’s spare couch: a bed.

with the two quarters my uncle gave me one drunken night he brought home

a nameless phantom to use my only half-claim in this world.

with the unforgiving floor.

I can’t bear to look back.

Her Oklahoma eyes have not seen the gum-globbed soles of my shoes.

Blue eyes don’t walk these streets.

Juh-lil?

It’s Juh-leel. Jalil.

She is insistant.

The resumes I know come in paperless forms.

Heavy fists, metal whips, pursed lips.

Empty piggy banks afford me no emails to write.

Fun is fashioned by the violence that breaks us

that takes us away

that left me this way.