At age seven and more than passingly

resembling a Dickensian street urchin,

I wandered alone, outside my mother’s

eternally stern, watchful gaze

and quickly became mesmerized.

Street slang, euphemistically labeled Ebonics

in today’s politically correct parlance,

was a foreign language whose

rhythms flowed like Melle Mel’s

Beat Street rhymes and intoxicated

my pristine ears like the contents

of one of the ubiquitous forty ounce

bottles littering the block.

I fell in love.

Mimicking BET dress styles

popularized by NWA, I let my pants sag

low—creased khaki suits

and Raider’s caps became

the main staple of my wardrobe.

Soon though, I added color to my attire:

red flag, red shoes, fat red laces,

with red Dickies, red Pendletons and

bright red draws.

And then, my name began to ring.

Twelve years old and fresh out

of juvi—I did time for a stabbing—

I wore a mean mug like

a permanent Halloween mask

ala Michael Myers, and instilled fear

with the ease of a Magic no-look pass

finding the open man.

Crack arrived in eighty-nine

and I embraced the storm with

the fervor of a romantic

latching on to a new lover.

Knives were replaced by

bigger and bigger straps

held to the small of my back

by a flame, snake skin belt.

A damu, sagging was no longer allowed.

By thirteen, my destiny was indelibly

inked in tattoos covering my rail

thin frame.  They told the story of an

allegiance that thirty funerals,

five gun shot wounds, six prison terms,

and the death of my pregnant wife

would fail to shatter.

Three black tears would trail from

my left eye—solemn reminders

to the three souls swallowed by the gun smoke

of my chattering Tec 9.

I was one with the block.

Sitting now on death row, I

re-read the ninety-eight page Supreme Court

decision that has sealed my fate.

I loved the bricks till

the streets turned, my blood staining

the project walls where I bled the concrete

spitting fullies and semis

at faceless enemies sporting flue.

Forgotten by everyone but my family,

I peer into my mother’s eternally stern,

watchful gaze and remember

how it was with my first love.

I fell in love with the streets.