the little things

no one knows
you know
only You know

met with the little homie today. he was walking in circles. we circled around each other. walking like we were once warriors. the police noticed our dance, the upper east noticed too, with police eyes. little homie understood. i understood him coming out his grandmother's crib, running from place to place, from woman to woman, looking for home.

she was cool, he told me, his fro clouding the clear january skies. me and her would meet for lunch like 3 times a week, but, where was it going? he asked.

i sat there with him, at the spanish diner, the one on the corner of the concourse that provides seats a window and a waiter who could nod in english. a meal will cost you $6, and everyone there had just enough to have a date, with no white people there to discover the cheap-eat and blast it on time-out magazine. we were lucky to be in the deep hood, clear of the brown people who were whiter than the white people they loved to talk about, the ones who came to the neighborhood and jacked up the rent and loved to criticize white people and gentrification.

little homie got quiet, as he thought of her, as he told me the rest in his low eyes grazing the asphalt. she knew i was going no where, that i lived with my grandmother, and that i barely made enough to scrape, to get by, and barely that. she knew there was no future with me and she didn't need to tell me. i could tell from the way she would start finding excuses not to hang out. the way she looked at me extra long without saying anything when i would talk about trying to find a job and getting one soon and things changing for me. i knew when her face got long, when she stared at me with those dark eyes like i were talking to myself on the train with a cup in my hand. i knew she just wanted to give me change and leave when she paid the bill and said she had to run. 

i'm a man, you know? little homie said. can't get caught with these chicks cause they looking for a man who got it together. who got a steady thing going, you feel me, he said, turning to me with a face harder than the scuffs on his face, softer than his sad eyes.

i knew. i know. it's why we were together. we got the same roll of the dice.

i thought of the words of the prophet muhammad, the one that the imam shared the other night when another death almost left me in glue, left me walking in place: stay away from grandeur. focus on the little things like dhikr, like prayer, focus on the things that no one else will see except ALLAH, that will bring you Closer. All praise is due...