it was something like beautiful

when i moved to the river west area as a little girl, i was filled with nerves. the houses were terribly close together and it seemed as though the concrete streets, were always filled to the brim, with people and noise. i didn't mind the noise much, i was used to that. it was the change, that brought me to being a fish, out of water.

soon i realized, all that was made up in my mind, would easily be changed.

although the flags that hung from stoops and rear view mirrors, had different hues, we were all more alike, than different.

it was almost funny, how fried plantains brought lillian and i together. the sweet and salty treat, merged  two islands, and friendship was born. we would sit next to one another for field trips, to the pumpkin patch and the apple orchard. at that time, the apple orchard seemed a million miles away, from our homes.

seasoned skillets, caribbean beats and bodegas were a part of life. lessons of the streets began in the morning, and didn't end until the street lights, began to beam.

there wasn't enough paper in my diary, to catch the ink that would flow the good and bad times, that raised me. i swear to you, there were more chapters in that diary, on being poor, than anything else. i believed in the black Jesus that hung on our wall, afro and all, swirled on velvet by the coolest artist in the hood. that painting was my light then. and it did me righteous.

death was a chapter, i am still not able to comprehend, but i promise you, seeing the hearse carrying papo's young body, laden with flowers through the neighborhood, was tragic, but all the same, it was something like beautiful. God was present in those streets that day, and as we stood on the curb, there wasn't a time or a penny that could separate us, as a neighborhood.
that night, more truth flowed from my pen, and the sentence i had placed on myself, would be lifted, by my own doing.

books and education, would separate me from the neighborhood, hell, these things would at times, draw a line between even me, and own family...or so i thought. shit, there was nothing like returning to the hood, to really school me.

piri thomas once said, "the cruelest prison of all, is of the prison of the mind."

the neighborhood raised me up- love and butterscotch candy( from my grandmothers apron pocket) would guide me.

if you got through this post, i thank you for reading. ; ) 
* something like beautiful, is a book i appreciated reading.


one love, my friends.