Two
Six
Six
Two
If she read this,
She would know exactly what I mean.

Her ghost is all around me.
Her voice rings in my head.

Two.
Six.
Six.
Two.
Even though it seems our chance has passed,
I'll never forget her.

Missing the trains, cars, and 3 AM bars. Excitement of the city, and the ache brought a pity. Of wanderlust she had once held in her hands and taken for granted. The adventure she had left there still overflowing in her heart. She had forgotten to appreciate the crowded avenues and beeping buses. The soft, gentle green grass of Central Park. The quiet and timid clink of silver spoons in coffee and tea shops. She missed the old rickety benches full of history and graffiti. The rough paved streets lined up with taxis. The food trucks overflowing with various smells calling your name. Even missing the loud taps of heels as businesswomen rushed passed her, to catch a meeting, a lunch date, a train. She realized what she thought she didn't want, was all she really needed. She thought she needed quiet and she thought she needed serene, but we all begin to realize nothing is what it seems. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew she would do it alone.  She would pack to go far, and get in a car,  going back to New York.... Her real home.

Every morning
I wake up in a city
that feels a little more familiar
each time my eyelids bloom daffodils
on a fire escape horizon.
Maybe I’m in love with a Newness
that begins to feel like Home.
Maybe I dream dumpsters
in Flatbush
or shoot Harlem
into my forearms.
Use telephone wires as tourniquets.
Maybe this girl I’ve been seeing has traces
of Paradise in her bloodstream.
                                          

                                           And then I have to remember this city is home to
                                           Pizza Rat, and bedbugs in the metro benches,
                                           and **** Holly Golightly,
                                           she never had to take the F train.


But maybe
she and I can share some unspoken reality,
and I’ll walk down 5th Ave. one day
holding my lover’s hand
as the sun turns sidewalks silver
and we’ll decide to grab a
croissant.

I wish I could go back in time
to simpler times
my Brooklyn times
Where I would just **** on my stoop,
with nothing to do
and think about how one day I make it big,
have my own family, house and kids
but here I am close to 30 still dreaming,
waiting patiently for my life to have some meaning
-E.G

I want to hold all the parts of you,
that I never knew existed.
and keep them close to my heart.

I want to see New York City
the way you grew up in it,
the part of you that still lives there.

I want you to take me to Brooklyn,
and I want to see you smile at me,
the way you used to smile.

I woke up this morning
With a smile on my face

I woke up this morning
So my smile can't be erased

Somebody didn't wake up this morning
I can hear there family weeping

Somebody didn't wanna wake up this morning
smiling to get through their  bleeding

I remember not wanting to wake up
In the morning
Hoping the pills would  
Take me away
Caught up in the Rapture
Now  I'm free I wanna stay

I wanted to wake up this morning
I got a 2nd chance
To live in my freedom
Smiling while I dance
-Lynn Legend

Lynn Browning ©

I'm fighting my demons
Trying not to let them
Get the best of me
But it ain't easy
When my demons is what
Comforts me

I be good on the outside
Falling apart from within
Life got so hard I thought
I was strong but I gave in

I no I'm living in sin
But everybody lives
In the fog every now n then

I no I can win I'm stuck
On addiction

Got me wishing
I can get through
This and no longer play
Victim

I'm not weak I just gotta listen
But I'm stuck in the addiction


-Lynn Browning ©

we ate government cheese
that came in a dull brown box
we were too young
to understand what welfare
and food stamps meant,
our empty bellies never protested
at the salty orange blocks

in front of the bodega,
we saw a woman introduce a hammer
to a drunk tyrant’s skull
his blood pooling on the streets
was too red for new eyes

we watched hypodermic needles
bloom on stoops
cling to life on curbs
the graffiti on abandoned buildings
was our Louvre, our Salon de Paris
sweltering streets our baseball diamonds
prostitutes, black or brown or both
mothered us between shifts

we grew up in projects,
that sheltered drab lives
and senseless brutalities
gunfire, sharp and immutable
punctured lullabies

we were small boys
watching life unfold
the way one stares at an accident
detached and mildly curious
eyeing cooly the despair
and impossible hopelessness
of growing up poor
in Brooklyn