Punching the Air: Part II

I wore mine high, right at the waist
sweatpants cinched at the ankles
with Adidas or Vans

There’s even a fading mural of cartoons
Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, a laughing sun
smiling birds and clouds
like this is supposed to be Disney World or something

He paints the past in broad strokes, bright hues
And the memories dance all over my mind
in living color

He paints in wrong choices, regrets, and broken dreams
And every acquaintance, friend, and enemy laughs at me
in my mind
really, really loud

But here and now
it’s not a classroom, it’s a cell block
it’s not a restroom, it’s open stalls and showers
it’s not a lunchroom, it’s the mess hall
it’s not friends, it’s inmates, felons, and delinquents

This feels like the principal’s office
except it isn’t
the plaque on her desk says she’s the
SUPERINTENDENT OF JUVENILE
PROBATION AND DETENTION
and her name is Cheryl-Ann Buford

It’s your choice
just like all the other choices you had
but if you abstain from going to class
you have to stay in your cell for the entire day

We threw balled-up paper at them
So when one of them did tell on us
we got suspended for a week
and were assigned our own monitors
for another week because we were on
probation

Last summer
Ms. Rinaldi helped me
with my art portfolio to get into
a fancy fine arts summer program

Muted and dull colors
Sad and pale rich white people
doing nothing but looking sad

But there’s no future in these
four walls four walls
boxing me in boxing me in
so I punch the air

shadowbox with God
spar with all four of these
corners as if they are all
different versions of me

We can appeal but it will take
a long time, Amal

and she looks over at the guards

dragging that other dude
through the dayroom and he’s

like a wet sock subdued

Then she says
Is this your way of telling us
that you prefer solitary?
Because we can arrange it

So why not put us all in jail?
Chance we’ll become like snails
Chance we won’t rebel
On me, they left indelible scars

Up north I come from down south
with the greatest tool
my mouth my words my rhymes
dark in skin tone like the dapperest of Dan

I overcame fears
not afraid to take a chance
’cause pain grips my heart
as I look to the motherland
I am here in captivity

Now tell me why
you want to be in the belly of the beast?
A dumb man sings a dumb man song
The devil's advocate is trying
to make you his feast

I doodle along the corners
curlicues and flowers and pretty shapes

Zenith, you are the highest point in the sky
where one day I hope we will meet again

Optimistic, you give me hope for the next day
and for when I can see your smile again

You were first my baby boy
grown into a young man
growing into a man
becoming an elder
transitioning into an ancestor
evolving into spirit
turning into breath
easing into life

Back at East Hills High School for the Arts
we were like a paint palette

blending into each other
in swirls of color, shade, hair

Those white boys
were from where Mr. George and the Kingstons

got their houses sold and bought from right under them
I’ve heard the word before—gentrification

Extra credit for naming the style and country
like Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Italy
Monet and Impressionism in France
Picasso and Cubism in Spain

You a high-class criminal?
You a bougie gangsta?

By calling myself a
prison abolitionist
I mean that I’m part of
a movement
that is fighting to abolish
the prison industrial complex

Everybody was
stumped by that question
when I first asked it to the group
It's okay, Amal
You have time to think about it

Take a sheet of paper out
of your notebook and
fold it in half, she says
without looking back at us
On one side you write
“Mistakes,” on the other side
you write “Misgivings”

I’m not trying to make
origami I just wanna write