Little Black Boy

Little Black Boy kiss his dunks that he got off the Nike SNKRS app.

Little Black Boy kiss his mother on the cheek everyday before he leave the house.

Sucks his teeth every time she says, “Watch your back.”

Ain’t enough watching in the world to protect you if the police want you.

He thinks that, he don’t tell her that

Everyday he wakes up thankful the NYPD don’t wear Tim boots

It’s a lot easier staying alive when you’re being stomped out by those big, bulky

jawns from the Army Surplus Store.

Little Black Boy refers to women exclusively as “females.”

Stripping the humanity from the one subordinate group his little dunks can reach

over.

Little Black Boy don’t like females that got they lips drawn on.

Little Black Boy from Bedford-Stuyvesant, he ain’t seen no girls with they lips

drawn on outside TV

Or Instagram

Or in his wet dreams.

Little Black Boy say in his dreams you would never find me.

I must look too much like his mama,

An uncanny valley Little Black Boy refuses to enter.

Little Black Boy loves him a racially ambiguous bohemian with dreads;

Hair always about a 1B or darker.

Little Black Boy only goes for females that don’t know they father.

That only wear Tim boots or lavender crocs unless they going to church

Or the funeral of another Little Black Boy from they neighborhood.

Little Black Boy named Huey.

Little Black Boy named Huey’s mama named him after the sexiest Black

nationalist she could think of.

Little Black Boy named Huey speak Tut in bed.

Goes to Jamaicans 8 blocks away to get his locs retwisted.

Has recurring nightmares that end in him getting shot in the head.

Little Black Boy named Huey wakes up in the middle of the night every night.

Little Black Boy named Huey so woke he tired.

Little Black Boy named Huey’s mama must of have had big dreams for her son

naming him that.

Including but not limited to—

Dead,

Political Prisoner,

Filled with self-indignation,

a Martyr.

Maybe,

Little Black Boy named Huey’s mama imagined him to grow up to be Murdered in

the street,

But not for no reason.