American Pie

How to raise a black boy

Or how to raise dying things

Or how to grow oak trees from concrete

Or how to turn 50 cents into three meals

Or how the streets make meals out of brown skin

Or how brown skin settles into pavement by morning

Or how we all felt his dreams spill beneath or footsteps

Or how the system blames us for the mess they made

Or how the street corners feel like an auction block

Or how they sold us this American Dream

Or how they cut us this American Pie

Or how no one left a slice for boys with mahogany skin

Or how no one taught they mommas to love life back into breathless things

Or how no one told they mommas they was birthing tombstones

Or how they carve tombstones from our baby’s test scores

Or how to pass a test you never knew was coming

Or how to fail a test you never knew was there

Or how to walk out of handcuffs made for your wrists

Or how to not love your hood

Or how to not dap your kin

Or how to not do what it takes to make ends meet

Or how to solve a 400 word puzzle with five pieces

Or how to color inside the lines when you ain’t got no crayons

Or how to play free at recess

Or how to walk home from third grade 50 years old

Or how to be born a thug, a killer, a shaken bottle of angry man

Or how to not be angry, man

Or how to see black mommas weeping over walking dead babies

Or how to not see no momma at all

Or how they call the closest thing to Home a project

Or how they tear the project down and build a Starbucks can’t nobody afford to drink at

Or how to make it out the hood they keep such a tight lid on

Or how to sleep and make gun shots your alarm clock

Or how they sell us guns, but don’t sell us books

Or how to beautiful and brilliant in Black bodies

Or how to be more than Black bodies

Or how to be living and growing and thriving things

Or how to avoid unfortunate things

Or how to die as quietly as you have lived

Or how to not live at all

Or how they sold us this American Dream

Or how they cut us this American Pie

Or how no one left a slice for boys with mahogany skin