URBANIA

Image created on Canva by Borcelle

People used to say “urban” as a slick way to let Blacks know we were too ghetto and hood. Only good as the fast food, speeding up our bad decisions.

As if they invented a new way of living, they advertise new beginnings. Keeping us collared, bundled, dirty as a dollar. While we pay to keep theirs white, our forced smiles entertain, as they watch us grimace to survive cold nights.

This city! Grey dreary, foggy most of the year. Mindful of the way it medicates depression. On every corner, through every mirror, patriot healers stand, leading another business succession.

Blossoming like virgins and cherries. The smell of the most vibrant narcotic. Potent as mind copulation that tingles the spine.

Powerful, calm and inviting. The reason the hood needs a mental plan. Common place for homes with the highest income to provide room on every corner to house a make-shift slum.

Here, it makes sense to be discourteous, where people like me chase revenge and can barely pay rent. Trying to clean by airing dirt, but nobody gets close enough to care for the ones hurting.

A place where we contract equality. And salaried caregivers become useless officials, teaching kids to get ahead by making drug deals. Concealing pollution, bodily discharge, needles from paraphernalia and shrubs-poking my pockets for bread.

The city attempts relief when I swell up with anger. Punishing small businesses and taxing the GAY and BIPOC community for trying to make equity more than a profitable statement.

A place covered with towering greenery. Landscape breathtaking as a redhead running through a field. Where I get fired on and shamed for defending my family.

To say they accomplished something, people try to befriend a N.I.G.G.A.—I mean a MAN like me.