Flower City Blues
After everything. A mirrored refrain. I never dreamed you’d leave in summer.
I thought we would ride out all the way.
I thought my soul had finally found another,
but I’m on this flight alone
and my heart is in disarray.
Ode to my city-
how can I save you?
Ode to my bruddas-
how can I raise you?
Ode to our love-
how can I reclaim you?
How do I redeem us?
//
You said we’d catch a plane to Venice in the spring.
Then you clipped my wings
and flew away.
I never dreamed you’d leave in summer, but
now I must be the one to save us-
to my dismay.
They say if you want to hide something from a nigga,
just
put it in a book.
My bruddas don’t always read-
maybe that’s why, through my pen,
is the only space
I can breathe.
//
The city feel the heat creeping, so it’s over.
Niggas is like vultures.
The streets shall bleed.
Our love could have set them free.
I thought the vision
was to help them see.
But-
you just left me.
And all I can do
is scrap up the pieces.
You was supposed to sail the ship, but
now you gone.
And we sinking.
//
You said you’d catch me through the fall,
said I’d be the one that got away.
I never dreamed you’d leave in summer-no-
but now I must be the one to save us,
to my dismay.
I thought
I could never hate you,
but you making me hate your ways.
I won’t beg you to stay-no.
You made things this way.
But
why
couldn’t you stay?
//
I walk through the city,
and every block
still whispers your name.
Graveyards make stone-cold gardens,
and sirens hum the same refrain.
Another mother wipes her tears.
Another hope fades away.
And all I can think is-
how many dreams have died
trying to prove
they weren’t afraid?
They say we the Flower City,
but all our petals are stained.
Still-
we bloom in the cracks,
in the shadows,
in the rain.
//
So I write.
I breathe.
I plant poetry
where my people still bleed.
And if they won’t read,
I’ll make the words
breathe sound.
I’ll make the page
scream loud.
I’ll make the lost ones
proud.
//
I keep asking-
is this the cost of being from here?
To love something so broken
that it seeps through your tears?
To see beauty and rot
sharing the same breath of air?
They call us hopeless.
But they don’t see how we cope-
how we fight to survive,
how we laugh through the smoke.
So I sharpen my mind.
Carry words like a gift.
Can’t save the whole city, but
I’ll save it through this.
//
Let them call it poetry.
But for me, it’s a promise-
to every name that we’ve lost,
every soul made anonymous.
They aren’t gone.
They’ve just changed form.
Now every verse is a storm,
and every stage,
I transform.
Every tear’s a rebirth.
Every poem is a psalm.
Pray to God for wisdom.
Let my city stay calm.
//
I never dreamed you’d leave in summer…
but I still write you every day.
Hope somewhere between heaven and Hudson,
you’ll still feel me
when I pray.