Across Enemy lines

I can't do it. I CAN'T DO IT!!!!! We were just boys. Innocent. Sneaky. Playful. Free. And yet, our roads diverged. His into something fast and quickly rewarding. Mine - well, you know my story. And now, today I get the news that he is dead. Gone. Killed. Shit, murdered...over material foolishness we will not take with us into eternity.

Its as simple as a text message. He's dead. And yet, this isn't the first friend this has happened to.

Its taken a toll on me. Because, when I think about Michael, I can vividly remember us growing up side by side together. He was no different than me. We both had the same potential, opportunities, and exposure to resources. And yet, he lay in a morgue at this very moment - blood spilled for a retaliation wrought on material stuff that  loses values quicker than we can buy it.

This is where I get frustrated. To be perfectly honest, I'm not that sad for his mother and family. Michael had been rumored of taking lives himself. And while, I am not a champion of retaliation, there is a lot to be said about karma in its purest form. He lived by the sword. Nevertheless, my feelings are those of frustration. Taking an honest inventory of my feelings, I would have to define these feelings as annoyance, loneliness, and anger. See, Michael's death represents so much more than just another Black boy killed over foolishness, though that is exactly what it was. For me, however, his death sends me whirling back to childhood faces that I can now place in one of three locations: prison, the grave, or some hourly job.

The shit is real.

When statistics say prisons are being built today to house half the black babies born yesterday, I can finally, clearly see why. The ratio for my childhood friends and I has tipped significantly in the prison/dead direction rather than the other way around.

So where does this leave me?

I could be selfish for feeling this way but I refuse to apologize. I feel alone and I'm upset about it. I'm the only one left to bear a burden of success that should have been spread among a neighborhood of healthy, young black boys. My cross now feels ten times heavier, making me feel, in turn, more desolate, removed... alone. Someone once told me, the higher you go in education, the more people you leave behind. IS THAT REALLY TRUE??? I already struggle to stay connected to the plight of my students but I'm truly afraid that the one thing that has to give in my pursuit of happiness will be my mental attachment to reality. I don't want to be a part of the phony Black Intelligencia who have mastered the craft of selective amnesia to avoid a nightly ritual of "tylenol pm'ing" in order to get decent sleep.

Maybe I'm overreacting. But today, I fell like I am the last of my kind. I can't go home and talk about my college life with anyone. No cousin in my immediate family can relate to a story about a dorm party or college program. There's no one in my age group who owns their own home, car, etc. I am ALONE.

And I know there are thousands of young, black dudes in my boat - lifting the same oak cross everyday as they take steps toward their future. But I have not met them. Not yet. So for now, I feel -

alone.