4am in Belmont

It’s 4 am,
Amen, I still alive.
Belmont didn’t take my life last night.
I jump up twice out my sleep.
Thought a man was in my house.
Because where I from we don’t sleep easy.
In the house is just granny and me and,
she always afraid somebody go steal she tings…
But is really she life she fraid for.
Go back in your bed sun, the sun aint start rising…God, granny i writing!
Son is half past one.
No granny is 4am, can’t you smell d blood?
Can’t you hear that one persistent dog that has been barking since yesterday?
The bitch jus happy to be alive this morning.
Instead of barking I praying because I understand exactly what that dog feeling.
Demons prowling.
Cocaine itching under the skin.
So they sinning to sniff other people sweat and tears away.
Cocaine has no friends.
Especially in Belmont when is 4am,
and  is almost like i could hear the scrape of a spoon at the bottom of an empty condense milk tin as mothers in the valley road try to make miracles  before the babies wake up.
Is the second day of school and the lunch kit new but it have nothing to put in it.
And the school book fresh off the shelf but they afraid to even look in it.
The ghetto afraid to have her heart broken by assumptions she made before.
Too many over educated cocaine dealers under street lamps.
Our futures are not secure tomorrow is not promised to beasts or men.
Especially in Belmont when is 4am.
Roosters screaming their lungs out trying to call up the sun up but like he an all wouldn’t listen.
And it will take more than the blaring of cocks to wake my people up.
There are nineteen locks on my house not counting the bolts on the windows.
Because in those few hours before sunrise gunshots usher souls away, from the realm of men…I want you to understand me brother is 4a…m.
So, buy a dream from a coke head and stitch it on to the fabric of your being to begin to understand the meaning of the mayhem.
And pray for your life forever and ever amen, in Belmont when it’s 4am.