“you ain’t a man until you’re given a gun.”
he said. but I knew better.
giving a boy a gun
doesn’t make him a man.
it makes him a boy with a gun.

my hands were made for pens, not glocks.
I told him his were too.
he laughed and said,
“nah, my hands are made the same
as every other boy on this block.
you cut off my finger, it’s still gon’ bleed.”

I tried to argue but he said,
“these hands steal ****.
money, jewelry, clothes.
hell, these hands steal lives!”

and he was right about that.
he had the same dirt on his hands
that any other boy around here had.

still, I think his hands
were made for pens, not glocks.
maybe he would’ve picked up a pencil
if his hands hadn’t gotten
so used to holding a gun.

he was nineteen.
he was young and angry
and ready to fight,
and he didn’t know exactly why,
but he knew he had to be.

the streets here are where people
disappear when it gets dark,
and where no one asks questions
when the sun comes up.

there are no flowers
growing next to the sidewalk.
here, there are bags of crack
and gold chains and Cuban cigars.
there are plants here, but no flowers.

I was taught that here,
they don’t follow laws,
but they need to follow rules.

most rules here are unwritten.
instead, they are ingrained
into the street’s children,
a mantra that you could die
for not remembering.

he said, “if I die,
it’s gon’ be sprawled out on concrete.
no way I’m going down
without a fight.”

here, they are still fighting wars
that ended years ago everywhere else.

here, they grow up without
mothers and fathers.
they learn to feed themselves
as soon as they no longer
need a baby bottle.

here, it is strange
to not join in on the violence.
it is strange to not participate
in drive-by shootings.
it is strange to not want revenge.

here, strange is dangerous.
things are the way that they are
and this is the way they have always been.

here, he was any other
nineteen-year-old boy.
here, they would say he died naturally.
he stepped a little too far into view
and a bullet struck him in the right spot.
or the wrong spot,
depending on how you see it.
quick and almost painless for him,
but that hurt moved on to everyone else.

here, there are no rights and no wrongs.
things are not good or bad.
things simply are.

his mama sobbed when
she heard what happened.
she cried for him, but also
for every other boy on the block.

she cried for the boy
who ended her son’s life,
because she knew
he wasn’t any different
than any other boy here.

she cried for all the mothers
who lost their sons,
and for all the children
born into this life.

here, they don’t have to die
for you to lose them.
this life takes them from you,
dead or alive.

he was a friend,
and a brother, and a son.
he could’ve been
a writer, or an athlete,
or a ******* astronaut
for all I know.

but in the end,
he was only a boy with a gun.
here, they call that a man.