We stand in the shadows of silent expectations

Where the complex intersections of our identities

Is not enough to halt the deceiver lurking,

Trying to distort our clarity

Whispering all these shape-shifting falsehoods

About growing up in the hood

In the bounds of certain zip codes

Where the gag to our growth

Are street names and avenues

And you’re looked down upon

Even when people on the other side of the gate

Look just like you

Today, we have chosen visceral silence

And as we tiptoe to peer over the

Tops of your white picket fences

We choose to peel our ears back

To hear the world’s tiniest djembe

Playing just for us

We’ve done the same to our eyes

Your green grass just isn’t as lush anymore

And the veneer of your backyard

Has no way of burying our tenacity too deep

We can’t imagine how the earth aches underneath your feet

And how the blackened and caked nails of our

Ancestors gone to dust weep and

Sigh as you decry

A spoiled bloodline that didn’t have a chance

To rise to the same height as you did

The Great Deceiver has fractured the histories and culture

That weave our realities

But once we realize our neighbors are no kaleidoscope images

Disjointed from just poor choices and bad judgements

We can mirror our hopes and dreams

And maybe we can see each other without the cracks