Manchild Running Wild

Image from Between the World and Me Book by Ta-Nehisi Coates-adapted into an HBO documentary

Lord let me make it tonight. Don't let my star dim under this moon. Light the way. I love you but don't wanna see you soon.

Prayer for my N.O.R.E.’$ (Niggas On The Run Eating)

Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. Running. Crushing leaves, reminded him of stomping and breaking bones of intruders.

“I’m a-live-nigga-right”, he told himself. Happy he made it out.

Panting! Yelling! Footsteps!

Chambering, of the undertaker’s favorite gift, jolted him back to the present.

Huh, huh, huh, huuunhhh!

Sounds his girl made before she came. Love, sometimes, brought the same rush as hate.

Remembering his last visit to the strip club. He and his lady were on the outs that night. He needed action to avoid a jackin’ spree. Throwing his hand was a vice that gripped, til they were broken. Betting it all that he was thorough enough to be rewarded without his bread, stuffing deep in lips and cheeks. Instead, he left with hook’in money.

Down an alley, animals make home, he pounded in a fit- like he was trying to beat shame. Her moans, now that he was really, really, thinking back on it, were stroking for a tip much bigger than his.

He wondered where she was. Cold lonely nights are made for forbidden love. The only time its forgiven.

Huh, huh, huh, huh-chest heaving. Breaths departed like stolen hope of brothers on corners, warmed from hot blood, splashing through open mouths.

Wise, told himself "Don’t give up." “Cause they aint."

Staring at billboards and skyscrapers. Heights he reached once on a plane, from the earth’s medicine, and from rooftops where he soaked in the creators’ gifts. Looking down on the scattered, packed like roaches and rats. He wondered. Imagined stories of the life’s he would never enter. He hoped all his niggas’dem, would survive, in a city where the economy boosts after color dies. He thought- nothing but white lies. We spread them, then dead each other.

Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh…

FUCK! I don’t wanna…

Wise hid in a building. Hoping to avoid a congregation from the nosey lights. The crunch of broken glass, sounded like a swarm, on this nervous quiet night. The storm of a setup was the only news Black folk never heard of.

Waiting, silent as lawmakers, ready to bang victims raw with their gavel.

He began again, "please god"…

Then decided, chasing spirits was the end of movements.

Wise shut his eyes with gentle anguish as if summoning a migraine to end. Then crouched and duckwalked across the house to the furthest room without stopping.

He thought- Why couldn’t I do this on the wrestling team? I would’ve made varsity my first year.

He saw underwear and socks spread across an open oven, where cold hands that rubbed clothed skin, were heated to regain feeling. The whole house was painted with the aroma of struggle, survival, and dope. Where baking soda made foam that cleaned and rotted teeth. Anything out of place in this, made occupants flip, spazzing like mothers who lost sons.

His own father was in a home that made the domesticated wild. Settled in a cage where bastard’s escape children. Men with young minds, gambling life instead of holding their babies.

When Wise thought about his father, his palms itched like a dirty interaction that gave him a rash.

Before his father broke out, so he could run loose, like the women lusted, but un-loved, who drained wallets, and sucked the life out of marriages faster than cheaters come, and played victim- he told his son,

“don’t nobody owe you. And if that's how you survive then everyone you deal with will own, you.”

Wise took it as parent code for BOY! You got your chance to be a man, NOW! Instead of once in a while, when he lifted, did some pushups, smelled funk from his pits, or after his first piece of pussy, survived his first fight, and figured out how to handle himself, or got mad after believing promises that were never kept.

-So, basically the motherfucker was saying-

“ain’t no excuse that help you.”

Wise knew his father was trying to clear the karma of his DNA. And wondered if it was high blood pressure from seasons of misdeeds and hard living, diabetes, or just pure hopelessness and stupidity.

Angry for attention with the mind of a young and wed, Wise kicked out a window to test his importance. Then jumped out and ran.

More footsteps and panting. They were on him again!

He heard horns beep, tires skid to a halt.

He ducked into an alley. A morgue for the forgotten. Wild eyes, reflecting danger, curiosity, envy. And the occasional pretender- waiting for manipulated love to not be a dead end-jerked him to a slow walk.

Wise placed his hands- palms out, to present peace. Ready to leave them resting that way.

He was transported back to his time in juvie. Rodney "mouse," Carlson, welcomed him by promising to knock out his perfect teeth, to replace the one he'd lost. The remaining were buttered yellow. His mouth smelled like dehydrated piss, strong as rat urine. And despite his hairiness from very early puberty, he had the smoothest skin, which reminded Wise of a woman who told him;

“Take your first pee of the morning in the shower. Get some on a washcloth and wash your face with it.

Chuck “bulldog” Hatton- had jowls, like a fat old man, and spit when he talked. His tone was a bark, like a miserable parent who yelled every word.

Tess, the female counselor, had a high ass, and pranced when she walked. Her long thick braid, swayed, controlled with the forceful charm of a snake. Everything she wore was eXtra, eXtra, eXtra, tight. She kept the boys in heat, with her cat print. They didn’t need to get their hands on magazines-just to visit her desk. A glance of her adjusting in her seat, the spread of legs was a flash of Porn. The boys leaked milk before they got to the bathroom, or under sheets.

The food... He tried to be grateful for it. Like kids who grew up in church, or with strict-caring parents. But the ones locked down with him seemed like the bad-asses, who never got theirs bruised. The ones who talked back, even cussed parents out because they felt rules meant slavery. Until he got to know them, and peeped their quirky fears, of hugs and but slaps after scoring. How they entered all doors and went to sleep last, or always stood with their backs against the wall, protecting an exit-wounded by perverts. The abusive, natural, and foster-ones that produced strays and runaways. Who dreamt of buying houses for those that hug and burning those that punched love away.

The night before Wise’s release, he had to run through THE TOMB. His fellow juvies lined up with lumpy pillowcases, zippers and fists. Their eyes filled with a happy excited rage. Sure, HE was Leaving, but they were held in. He had to make it through to reach to the womb of a new life.

By the time he pushed passed the blockers, he was too wobbly and senseless to care, or realize his dick was plunged in blood. Tess was his first. It was their secret. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it in.

When he started to seize, she pulled him deeper and said, “I’m naturally protected.”

He had no idea what she meant back then.

A tug at his pant leg, kicked him back into the moment. He made it through the alley faster than the shots that sent him to juvie and the one he parted with.

"Even wolves know when to retreat" his Grandaddy had told him.

Heavy footsteps pounded pavement- the city’s graveyard, covering man’s rage. Grey slabs, leading towards a coffin, classroom, or cell. Blocks stacked with weight he couldn’t hold. Where guardians and siblings needed an angel to protect home.

Rain flowed like tears from the blues of his Nanas favorite songs. The type that whispers to bones. Pulsing like nostalgia from heart break, spot raids, and bullets stuck in flesh. Reminders of keloids rubbed tenderly by girls who molded ugly into sexy, as long as they were fucked good and ate better than the hungry chicks hunting for leftovers.

Each drop was a knock-on dreams and nightmares. Fears men don’t open in front of any face that could reflect disappointment. Doors shut, because looking ahead, and back on mistakes, didn’t provide the strategy to overcome they visualized.

Wise was limping now. His adrenaline expired like an old hustler flirting with his last dime. Not moving too much, cause what he carried sank deep like water, and the souls it holds. And the rush he got from his Ruger- weaving, bobbing, dodging, conducting bodies.

Huh-huh-huh-huh- shit!.

He bent over-hands on knees-just for a second.  

Gulping after escaped breath.

Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-head up, hydrating.

Splashing puddles with sloppy feet, can’t run swift when you’re not looking. The ripple was evidence for the pursuers on him.

This was the only time he wished they would sue, instead of shooting. Dimming stars, falling on courts, pleading to juries crowding stands to cheer the loss of another minor who didn’t make it too.

“Man, that boy wasted his life!” “But at-least the neighborhoods are getting cleaned up- so our kids can suffer in private and safely from prescription drugs.”

Wise envied how smart people got rich from beings dumb!

Kill dem, don’t breed dem, fuck dem, don’t help dem, don’t be like…

These people pretend not to know. But the streets watch, hold strong, and tell, stories truer than the news. The only thing Wise hated was snitches. They made prison tenure mandatory for Black corner businesses.

More than that tho, he despised pillow talk, it made bitches on both sides.

At that moment he stopped. He knew love was lost.

DumpDumpDumDumSlumpedHuhHuhHuh…!!$$?? Find Life Hold on Stay with Stay strong Wait Dont Go Get Up Keep Going Noooo