Ballad of the Black Boy

By Devon Riddick

i.

The little brown boy sits in his chair, this day felt different, He typically doesn’t sit in his mind, just dumping all of past, controlling the unbounded spirit to current day,

Repetition in the stigma reminds us of all our common fate, but allow my story to be heard once more, and enjoy the pain, enjoy the turns and jumps across the grass-covered neighborhood

I feel like I lost myself, I can't find myself in a maze of self-reflection, some days are memorabilia on a lustful field trip, but each one tends to become forgettable... I disappoint my eternal self in pity attempts at high morality, on the outside; however, people love me,

adore my spoken word,

enjoy my smile while its picture ready,

but that smirk fades when life kicks through my living room, boiling my brown cape and wrapping its own version of justice across my skin.

He brings poverty to my doorstep. My neighborhood resembles my broken mirror. My hand-me-downs drag, as if I’m neighbors with poverty himself, I always had to settle, never getting exactly what fate intended for me, but what was that actually? Just to breathe and exist for external beings?

Nobody cared.

So why will it matter when my life has no meaning? Or when I explore it for myself? But I had stay humble, I knew mom did her due diligence for the undeserving in the eyes of the only, going home starved and deprived of positivity, it’s not like I had the lunch money, to retrieve a bite, but my metabolism of love ran out of the biosphere of middle schoolers. I just wanted what my peers had, I just wanted new shoes, the new love.

ii.

Father wasn’t painted on this canvas, he never actually existed until I previously breathed his existence, there isn't tainted blood in this tale, instead, I just didn’t know the guy. Dead and nonexistent in this episode of monologue. Just me and moms, but before her, it was me and grandma. Generations built on the bed where I rest. Slumbered near the fingers that grandma walked on. She taught me everything before I knew anything, before I knew I. Before I tried to.

She introduced my current inspirations, but she’s not currently with me, not in the physical universe. My spiritual guide through this living diaspora.

iii.

Mommy and I had a rocky rollercoaster through different amusement parks. We loved the cloud grabbing aspect of life, enjoying space as we consumed it every day of every second,

until it wasn’t.

I had a hard time accepting life for how rugged it could be without their meds, I just had to accept it. Sometimes I didn’t want to accept the spiritual being and its strength, said being walks each soul and touches said soul in many aspects, spilling truth with every step,

yelling.

screaming.

running.

lV.

Creation took the form of alchemy. I never knew my mathematics God, but I'll figure it out, or not. That’s the beauty of free-will, even her energy does not excite me. The chase of finding infinite knowledge did not become as fugal to my soul as I expected. Art became a war worth battling. Picked up the Arms and began to swing as an ego spilled from the barrel. I write my life away, God. What's mathematics, God? Knowledge and destroy? I align my lies to my lustful heart. It taints my art, God. Forgetting the origins behind the boy.

 V.

I hated it, my confidence followed a promiscuous abyss to the promised land, and ended up in the utter opposite, being bound by bullies and books. I can go on and on regarding the everlasting tale of the unrecognized, but listing countless trials and tribulations are redundant and lack retention, hours of trauma cannot turn back time on the clock, but it’s not departure, yet the road was brutal, battered, and beaten. Riddled with potholes and construction all around, it hurts to drive maneuvering through the peninsula of brownness, but it’s worth every mile, countless times the tank was empty, even thoughts of selling the truck, but my soul yearns.

About the Author

Devon Riddick, Elizabeth City State University

Devon Riddick is 22-year old senior attending Elizabeth City State University. He is a poet, writer, podcaster, and content creator. He enjoys anime, reading poets, and collecting vinyls. He also is a MF DOOM enthusiast and enjoy artists such as MIKE, Earl Sweatshirt, A Tribe Called Quest, and Westside Gunn.