Cityscape

A Poet's Portrait of A Harsh Life Growing Up in Detroit

May 18, 2016, 10:30 PM
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Portrait of mother and child by Blinq McCurdy.

By Blinq McCurdy

Blinq McCurdy is the pseudonym I use to share my perception of life and how it frowns on some and smiles upon others by design. I am a 40-year-old black man raised in Detroit and still working here.

Although my life now is drastically different from those who kill and sell poison to each other, I realize that we are more alike than we are different. The only thing that has kept us separate is guidance and different decisions along the way. Even though I am educated and can adapt to any situation I still find myself having to qualify my presence amongst strangers who's complexion is lighter than mine.


 

My poem, "A Letter to the People," is a composite of my experiences, along with the lives of those that I have encountered.

I have children and one of the jobs that a parent assumes is to shield their sons and daughters from harm. I will not stand idle as society attempts to treat my children differently because of a difference in skin tone. I believe that it is my duty to do all that is in my power to educate my children and our youth. My written word is one of the ways in which I hope to do that.

Here is my poem:

A Letter to the People

At 12 I’m the man of the house. . . . Sadly, that has been my reality for quite some time,

Mom’s in jail . . . again.

Sissy’s curled up on the floor weeping . . . too hungry to move,

The cupboard is bare . . . the food in the fridge is rotten . . . there is no power . . . no polecat . . . who could pay him. 

Boo spins the faucet to get a drink of water. . . . Just like days before, nothing comes . . . not even a drop.

We ain’t bathed in days . . . Nobody comes to check on us . . . There is no one to call.

If I call the police we will be split up . . . I tell myself I can do it and for a while it works.

I get dressed in my best . . . which isn’t good enough.

I walk to the Murder Mac . . . wait at the pumps. . . . Smiley pulls up in his new Challenger. He used to date my older sister Tish . . . before she killed herself.

I run up to his car . . . I nod . .  he replies . . .  What up, Doe and holds a 20 out the window. . . . I fill up the tank and he gives me 5 dollars.

Saadie . .  the girl in the hood all the boys fight over . . . approaches with her flock of friends . . . she speaks . .  to me . . . her friends laugh and clown me talking about the way I look and the way I smell. She ignores them . . . when she comes out she brings me some food, and I take it home to Boo and Sissy.

Me pumping gas would be how we survived in the years to come.

At 20 . . . the hood belongs to me, Smiley is long dead . . . Saadie is my girl and the police have no idea who I am.

For the ones who used to make fun of me and my family . . . our roles are now reversed . . . even though I was shittin on em I didn’t shit on em. I had arrived.

The ones I came up with went to prison, or died in the jungle.

Now I’m 40 . . . I was born in the box they built for me and I escaped….Saadie and the kids don’t want for shit. Someday Ill be gone and I wonder if I have done enough with my short life to make the world a better place to raise a child.

I reflect on all that life has shown me, and see as privileged society calls me and those in similar circumstances . . . savage . . . criminal . . . nigger, and I wonder how they would fare in the same situation. If your life began as mine did, with poverty in focus and affluence in the distance . . . would you survive?

In this moment . . . everything is clear . . . the battle has begun for our freedom and the only weapons I need to start the revolution are a pen . . . a pad . . . and you.

Follow Blinq McCurdy on ​Instagram.



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