uptown love song, pt. 2.

let me sit drip sweat with you fam
I am/only as I stand here with you
never abandoned but brought together
under the most unsuspecting
of circumstances
having circumnavigated these streets
draped in superhero capes from six flags
as the only reason
we need
to love
& sweat
& show our tears
made manifest through laughter
on uncomfortable couches
or the unstable steps of the back porch
we swat playfully at instigations,
wipe away the stains
left by real ones

maybe we have never before said out loud
what we are most afraid of,
whether that’s having someone else know
the real reason you haven’t changed ur clothes
wear long sleeves in summer
maybe sunglasses even indoors.

I have been
brought to my knees
by these poems smeared
on the silhouettes of these walls
breathing life into both
familial and unfamiliar
spaces
these poems exist
not as murals or memories
they ooze from the tips of our fingers
trailing every brick & black gate
every peace sign every wave
we muster to make some
kind of connection
our fingers
our poems
our people together weaving
our every truth
into an uptown story to be sung
whether muttered under
our breath like what the fuck
can’t take this anymore
or forced out like a rooftop yawp
that fills every restless lung
every rest of us afraid to speak
the cadence of our in-between tongues

let me tell you brother
I know what it’s like to have ur tongue tied
by years of silence across a dinner table

sing sister
the long low wail
of survival

we poets be
the crack between
a sidewalk and a dock
to leap off even if our only landing
be a lake not even named for this state
of mind

the illest noise be sacred
be our hands clapping together
taking back the rhythm of our hearts
disrupted from one too many times
being told you’re not good enough
this be believing
be the off-key reminder
of the truth we sing of our selves
as uptown we
begin as poems
we breathe
believe
we love
song.