Tour Through the Neighborhood
By Matrice Young
I'm from Chicago and I'm a junior Creative Writing major at Knox College. I've been writing and performing poetry since I was 13, and I've loved it ever since. I've won the Carl Sandburg Rootabega Poetry Slam twice, and I also perform on campus. I also enjoy doodling and daydreaming.
Welcome, to the inner city
Load the bus with your wide
Cream eyed gaze and tell your friends
That you've met the brothas and sistas
of a court defined gang
Of black and brown bodies linking fingers
Through the curse of inner city, of
walking body bags where each street
Corner is a grave, welcome, to your
education of the descendants of slaves.
Welcome to the kaleidoscope of broken hope
and broken home
Here, we
rip out our backbones and
somehow preserve our spines
To pass the monarchs our dimes,
Here, we (inhale)
smoke exhaust like chlorine pool and
liquid green,
Here, we
hack out blood spatters
The size of segregation
On split-end sidewalks
and cracked gum stains
Here, We
deepthroat our fingers covered in red dust
To feel the thrill and sting of self-flagellation
Of burning throat and wheezing lungs
A hot chip burns better than the master’s tongue
A hot chip burns better than a loaded gun
A hot chip burns better than no food for my son
And hot cheetos never killed anybody, right?
Here,
Our red eyed herrings breed
Utopia, breed ‘this happy place’
this ‘sanctuary’
Here, we hear the call
“Jus passit disway nigga!
Lemme get a hit off that loud shit
Need another gas to pass
The carbon dioxide
Lemme fill my lungs with a little more
Europhia, will you?”
Here,
Our children rest
On their own graves.
Their skin melds
With the arsenic
In the wood their chubby
Cheeks graze, and
They won’t replace the
Swingset because they need
That cash to add to the slave trade
Fill the future prisons with cancer babes
And mask it with the song of a carnage raid
Here,
You don't gotta believe in god to pray
Hands form triangles for visibility on
And to give way for where they aim
X crossed wrists marks the spot of both surrender
and stray, the diamond bend of our backs
When a man who considered himself a worshiper
Becomes god
and lets his bullet spray,
Worshipper becomes Eve when forbidden fruit
Sputters from our mouths against the gray
I bet you’d never seen a man in blue
So happy to see the bend and arch of ebony by day
Here,
The rivers have always run red
With lead, prematurely
Sipping from the clip
Of death’s trigger finger
Boney black with veins of white
An ethereal sight, purity never
Looked so alive
Except down the barrel
Of a three-year-old eyes
Here,
with your face pressed
Against the glass, puffing hot
Fog into your filtered air,
As you ride pass with the
Doors locked, remember
We cannot unlock the cage
You put us in, some entertainment
cruise that you can just
breeze right through—
This is the black body
In the inner city.
Editor’s Note
“This piece is so genuine, rhymes beautifully and it really dives into the social issues seen in the African-American community on a personal level.”
“This piece evoked very strong emotions as it speaks about social issues that are relevant today. It dives into stereotypes of the African-American community and the oppression that the community has to deal with in such a detailed way that you can see it yourself.”