Ode to the Abandoned Apartment Next Door

 ODE TO THE ABANDONED APARTMENT NEXT DOOR

for my little brothers: Elijah, Ajala and Immanuel 

 

You are in ruin.

You belong to the same class 

as I, forgotten. 

 

Little Black boys 

play cops and robbers, jump

parkour on your concrete body.

 

Little brothers, so full of life, 

love you enough to die on you—

cracked skull, bruised knees, chipped

tooth, all to match your broken 

bricks and wretched windows, your 

tattered roof and boarded doors.

 

I mourn for you,

aged, in ruin since I was child.

You are bound: to earth, to hood,

by boys, by me. 

 

Beautiful, I never had the chance to see

your interior; how I wonder, how beautiful you are within? 

 

Does your decay mimic 

the beauty of little Black brothers crashing 

into boyhood on your four steps?

 

Does your ruin love back 

as Black boys will one day outgrow you, 

like I outgrew you? You...know love...?

 

You suspend time, let little Black brothers 

be boys, avoid manhood, love your stairs, as big

as the entire world. Like me, forgotten, 

in ruin, they play cops and robbers 

on our body. Somehow, we still age.