🔵 By Lamont Wilkins. Photo by lauragrafie.
Really?
I mean, seriously though…
For well over 20 plus years, I’ve been walking around…
Red Flag in my right back pocket,
Chip on my shoulder,
Colt 1911 semiautomatic in my waistband,
and an enemy in my sights that I grew up with.
Really?
We slept in the same bed as kids,
ate off the same plate as teens,
and now we shoot at each other over the same block as adults.
He Rep’s his…
I Own mine.
Really?
His brother was my best friend,
he held me down when I got locked up,
and threw a party for me when I got out.
His girlfriend was pregnant,
the crib was packed when I walked in,
everybody in Royal Blue…
She woke him up, and we toasted to my freedom.
He gave me money and said „Get you and your girl a room, I’ll be here when you get back…“
In the time it took to walk across the street,
talk to the woman behind the register, and open the room door..
The phone rang in the hotel room.
„Come quick, he just shot his self in the head, and she’s not letting anyone in to get his body!“
Really?
Years later, I’m looking at a spitting image of him…
And, even through the haze of marijuana, pills, and drink,
as I see him clearly through this scope.
I’m thinking…
„Boy… you’re so lucky your dad was my best friend – but your homies are a different story.“
Really?
„Breaking news, we’re on the scene of an overnight shooting that has left multiple people critically wounded. Police say it was apparently a gang-related drive by shooting, by members of a rival gang. At this time there are no witnesses, and no suspects.“
Really?
While I listen to these so-called „Gangster“ rappers rhyme about „putting in that pain…“
I Really did.
I Really put in work for my Hood.
I Really put my life on the line for a block, that I’ve come to realize I Really don’t own.
When I write, I put my life in it.
Not as a means of throwing it in anyone’s face…
I’ve been on BOTH sides of the gun,
I don’t glamorize either,
but I’d rather be judged by 12, than carried by 6.
They say sometimes life imitates art.
I’m living proof that art sometimes imitates life as well.
„Crack drives chatter/I’m trying not to straddle the fence when self-defense trumps Black Lives Matter/hypocritical and some/but I stopped caring bout‘ life when 12 gauge made a 3-shot handgun/“
Really?
This is what I been reduced to?
A shell of a man,
a box of shells in my hand,
homicide by prison,
or suicide by cop…
hell of a choice huh?
I’m older now,
wiser now,
moving like I want to live,
instead of living like I want to die.
I’m not gonna lie though…
this trigger finger still itches sometimes.
Cause nowadays,
these young boys don’t care about nothing.
Disregard for the way it’s supposed to be.
Disrespect for the Foundational Codes and Principles.
Dishonor of the OGs and the reason for all of this in the first place…
We were formed for self protection.
Now, we exist for self interest.
It went from „all for one and one for all…“
To „I’m doing this for me, cause nobody got me but me.“
Really?
I put this Royal Blue on now, as a reminder of where I came from,
not who I was,
but who my friends were.
Yes, I’ve always been on the „Other Side,“
I still am.
But I realize that my real enemy has always been the entity that knocks me down,
and has kept me down me down…
I wasn’t taught to hate anyone for whom they choose to be.
I was taught to hit a target,
and I realize now, this whole time…
its never been about Red vs Blue..
Cause in the end, its always boiled down to Black on Black.
„That Red be this Flag around my head,
that Fire in my eyes…“
No…
That Red represents the Blood of my ancestors,
spilled throughout this country senselessly.
What we do to each other in the name of a block,
others have done to us for sport.
It wasn’t a problem then…
It never is,
til it spills over into your neighborhood,
interrupting your peaceful little existence.
When they murdered an young Black kid for whistling at a White woman – allegedly…
Everyone was acquitted,
everyone went home.
Even though they had all of the evidence they needed to convict…
Fast forward to 2022…
I’ve been in prison for almost 19 years..
No evidence,
No Guns,
No Shells,
No Prints,
A Dirty Cop,
A Paid Informant,
Two Codefendants – the admitted killers by the way,
Already Home,
Living life as if nothing happened,
Flawless White skin,
against a multicolored backdrop.
Day in, and day out I wonder…
Had I been the one that pulled the trigger,
would I be home by now too?
That seems to be the message,
at least from my perspective.
No one contacts me to say „Keep Your Head Up!“
But, I do that anyway.
I’m a Soldier, I live and die by the codes I keep.
I won’t run from my fate,
I won’t beg for your understanding..
And I’ll stand with my chest out,
head held high,
chin up,
til I walk out the front door of this prison a free man,
or I’m carried out as a dead one.
Really.