Never Had A Friend
i never had friends
by age 10 i’d already lived seven years
with no memory of my mother
and three years without my father due to
his incarceration
i never stayed anywhere long enough to
develop meaningful
friendships by age 10 i’d already
survived five serious life-threatening
experiences
asthma head trauma near drowning
swallowed snake poisoning
and suffered a severe form of the flu
nested
within unsafe and uncertain
circumstances coupled
with the deeply wounded and
dysfunctional family
finding quality friendships was critical
for my survival
in those moments
when despair was too bitter to breathe
air it was strangers
that bestowed upon me a tremendous
amount of character concern and care
i witnessed a special kind of friendship
from children who were born and crime
infested
impoverished isolated drug polluted
concrete cages called the housing
projects
we survived by the power of our
friendship
and the truth in our art but before i
tell you the story of my friends i want
to talk to you a bit about trauma
the leading causes of death have been
linked to adverse childhood experiences
also known as aces i was on the brink of
a doctoral degree
when i learned that my a score was 10
10 crushing aces
from chronic domestic violence to my
late stepmother french kissing me and my
brothers before we went to elementary
school
we were defined by trauma and oppression
it shaped the depth of our depressions
the passion
in our affections and the truth in our
expression
a shame to speak so we nourish each
other’s courage to express ourselves
through artistic
confessions the thing you need to know
about our traumas
we get it from our mamas my ancestors
my kin folks were the victims of
american slavery
genocide apartheid and generations of
oppression we are
intimately connected to these atrocities
consciously
or unconsciously my grandfather was
among the first generations to be born
free
my very last name johnson
is a slave name it is not an african
name
but the name that commemorates those who
brutalize my forefathers
many things remain that we learned from
slave masters
such as some parenting practices gong
get that swatch
whip his backside with a belt boy sit
down and
shut up i’m gonna beat your baha
don’t you touch that i’m gonna beat you
stuck all that crying stop all that
crying i’m gonna give you something to
cry about you in this world
and i take you out
what do you think is the source of these
parenting practices
master john i
don’t want no trouble so
but adam bill is my wife she’s the
mother of my children
so she don’t want to share your bed no
more
please sir now you listen here
next time you come from me
taking this tone with me we gonna line
up all your children
where they can see good we gonna beat
you half the death front of them
then i’ma have my way with annabelle
every day
till i get tired of her then i’ma have
my way with your daughters
come from me tell me what i was gonna do
use mine
ungrateful devil we gonna beat your
black behind
before you stone
me or my friends for our imperfections
consider
that we may be rooted within a traumatic
childhood rooted
within social disadvantage rooted within
centuries of oppression
how does one survive while colonized
commodified
cultural genocide strangers in the
struggle become allies
allies become friends and with
friendship
we shifted the tides it gave us drive
encouraged our art empowered us with
pride
friendship gave us the audacity to stay
alive
and now it’s time to tell you the story
of my friends
i was startled by gunshots
from a painful slumber on the floor
drenched in sweat with symptoms of
severe hypothermia
dazed and disoriented i struggled to my
feet and stumbled zombie-like into the
living room
i witnessed my uncle aiming his gun
shooting at my father
i was frozen had my father
just been killed by his own brother
my father survived but we had to leave
rapidly intensely packing packing
the packing triggered childish fears
got to move again another school change
no idea why would end up and too sick to
cry about it
we were packing up again and i was
scared because every time we moved
i got hurt my family never had much
money
the closest thing we had to a deposit
was a rain check
therefore in early 1997
my home became an imposing and stunning
10 story
grimy dull brick building called the
auburn family reception center
located in the fort greene neighborhood
in the new york city borough
brooklyn the same cumberland hospital
where michael jordan and mike tyson were
born had become an emergency housing
shelter for mike johnson
there i was from the house my
grandfather built
to a homeless shelter with my comrades
casualties of american capitalism i saw
young mothers
sleeping on the floor nursing infants
ingesting disparities in the breast milk
of their mommies
it was horrifying but what really made
me nervous
tomorrow was the first day at a new
school
and i had no friends the first day at
ps67 i sat in the back row
the classroom door opens and in walks
this
12 to 13 year old kid floating in slow
motion on a cloud of mystical smoke
his skin was a golden brown he
nonchalantly panned a room with his
bright
hazel eyes covered in football apparel
the students cleared a path for him
the girl’s eyes fluttered the boys
nodded with pride and admiration
it was the grandest entrance i’d ever
seen i turned to the girl next to me i
said
who is this kid she said are you talking
about dayshawn
he the most popular kid in school he
like the prince of the projects
at lunch time i was in the far corner of
the cafeteria sitting alone
the fog emerges from the floor again and
walks deshawn
he walked with an entourage of kids who
should have definitely been in high
school at the time
they walk straight towards me he sizes
me up a bit and says
hey yo son you’re in fifth grade right
i’m deshawn these are my homeboys
i said i am mom i am mike
i’m micah i’m from florida he said
hey yo son you got a wild accent b
you sound like a farmer mike fifth grade
means
you have mr miranda after lunch i could
show you
hey yo this kid here is farmer mike
we’re gonna take him to class a small
crowd followed as he escorted me to
class and just like
that i became a crew member homeboys
with deshawn the prince
of the projects i would never eat lunch
alone again
mr miranda was a young latino teacher
with hope in his eyes
he had long shiny dark silky hair kept
in a ponytail
he was more than our teacher he was our
friend
his subject was math but he also taught
us character and artistic expression
there was an explosion of creativity in
fort greene at that time
this brooklyn renaissance gave birth to
spike lee erica badu chris rock
most deaf talib quality saul williams
and so on
mr miranda convinced us that we had the
finest quality of art inside of us
mr miranda used hip hop and shakespeare
to help us process our emotions the
story of macbeth
like our own so tragic so beautiful
so gangsta in fort greene our
friendships were forged
by our common struggle anger agony and
dream
of redemption we were counseled by
crackheads
drinking old english so we figured
shakespeare was just like us
and we were just as rough as mcduff we
too were casualties of the noble classes
economic and political ambitions
only when your friends and family have
been killed and incarcerated can you
truly
understand what it was like for macduff
to come face to face with macbeth
the symbol of his persecution and in
that brooklyn ghetto far away
from shakespeare and 15th century
england imagining the moment when we
could confront our oppressors and avenge
our friends we channeled
the spirit of mcduff
i have no words
my voice is in my sword
thou bloodier then then terms can give
thee out
despair thy charms
and let the demon whom thou still hath
serve tell thee
mcduff was from his mother’s womb
untimely ripped
then yield the coward
and will you’ll live to be the showing
gaze of the time
and we’ll have thee as our monsters are
painted upon a pole and under
it here may you see
the tyrant
mr miranda took us to the world’s famous
apollo theater in harlem for me
it was a holy trip a sacred rites of
passage
it was surreal and sobering to rub that
legendary tree at hope
i had become a writer and a performer
right there
on frederick douglass boulevard
deshawn promised me that one day
i would tell our story and it would be
liberating
the people would appreciate our art and
be inspired by it
to practice we played freestyle games we
could be anywhere anytime
we would stop and immediately perform
improvised rap poetry
how many years until that young boy
grown
left alone tried to be strong but never
had no home his faith has gone but with
his homies he can do no wrong
heart of stone but miranda tried to
change that tone brooklyn’s own
homegrown showed me how to get in that
zone at a young age jumped on the stage
and processed that rage
many days in dade county i was in that
daze
the hate they gave her was amazed by
that two-part phrase crime pays ryan
page the only ways to escape that maze
i was raised in a blaze of drugs
violence daddy in that cage
just the craze on the slaves decapitated
in that grave
desean tried to walk me home every day
but i had a morbid fear
that the whole school would discover
that i was homeless
and i would no longer be worthy enough
to hang out
with the most popular kid in school my
daily homework
was to convince deshawn to let me walk
him home
to avoid being exposed humiliated
and losing my friend
one day on the way home they shine
abruptly stopped and said
hey yo son where’s your building
i’m walking you home where’s your spot
man
ironically where he stopped
on the sidewalk was right in front of
the entrance to the homeless shelter
i tried to change his mind but he was
committed he would not be moved
it was 100 percent clear to me that this
is the day deshawn learns that i’m a bum
i’d be exposed to the entire school they
would torment me every day
about my head and shame i said
technically you’ve walked me home every
day
i live right here motioning with my head
toward the homeless shelter
deshawn’s eyes glared
toward that towering structure he said
oh man word
mike you live here
i bowed my head even lower humiliated
embarrassed broken
desean planted his feet squared his
shoulders
looked me directly in my eyes and said
we’re not going to diss you son
i will never diss you nobody is gonna
diss you
and in that instant we were forever
bonded
on the deepest level of friendship
i’ll never forget that experience at my
lowest and most vulnerable point a child
in an icy ghetto said those edifying
words of compassion
mercy humility and pure gangster
and his promise was kept no one ever
said a word about the homeless shelter
not even a single joke
i found happiness
in a homeless shelter because of my
teacher mr miranda
and my best friend deshawn
24 years since that day
i still marvel at the quality of those
childhood friendships
the best kind of friends authentic
loyal present pure
honorable and pleasant that
kind of friendship is empowering it’s
life-saving
it represents the highest quality of
love
there is so much we can learn from
disadvantaged children
the quality of their character the
beauty in their art
and the power of their friendships you
never had a friend
until you’ve bonded with one who can
understand your lived experiences
and the historical struggles of your
family you never had a friend
until someone has loved you the same
through your tragedies and your triumphs
you never had a friend until someone has
encouraged your voice
believed in your dreams and vowed that
no matter what
they would never betray you they would
never harm you
they would never diss you i pray you
humanize the children
who suffer from poverty invest in the
places they live
invest in their gifts and invest
in their friends
you