Second City

The following is some of my unpolished thoughts on the racial and class divisions in Chicago.  While it may be a grand tourist attraction to some, many of the youth in the inner city have a feeling of being trapped without the ability to escape from the poverty that seems inevitable. This poem is just some of my rambling but I think it speaks to the need for more people to be aware of the invisible chains that society places on these youth and their inability to break free.

A tale of two cities except there's just one 

City streets tell a story but only to some

One child marvels at the lights around him

while others get chills as the nights surround them

People come and people go each day, each year

Unaware of the prison walls that lock some in fear

Freedom, not an unfamiliar sight or fable told

But for those in the second city its something uncontrolled

No visible chains, no locks keep these citizens bound

yet their escape a distant dream to never be found

The same city that imparts hope and opportunity

for the forgotten it provides a desperate, hopeless unity

Citizens of the first city preach to these children to leave

To make something of themselves and just believe

but each sermon leaves these youth still enchained at their feet

With commands to run the race, but do not cheat

If cheating means merely hoping for the day

when the invisible chains will finally appear and fall away

Then cheating is the only way that this neglected city 

will see their dead-end wandering as more than just shitty

But, hear this, we won't stop until it is shown

that through a little invisibility and magic of our own

we can strike down the structures and chains that bind

and leave the tale of two cities far away, far behind.

 

Only then will the black son of God no longer face Abel's fate 

and maybe then the heart of the unaware Cain will choose to relate

Only then will a child's prison of great lakes: despair and self-pity

turn this second city of beauty into my city, his city, our city.

 

 

~Mackensey, 2012