Where the Wind Blows

Lying awake listening to the sounds of sirens, echoing through the night Alone in the apartment with his younger siblings, hoping his mother comes home all right Drug addicts pounding on the front door, wanting to buy another fix Johns looking for what the johns look for; he and his brothers the result of that mix He hasn’t seen his mother for the last four days; where she is nobody seems to know But it has been this way for his entire twelve years; the lady likes to just come and go He cares for his brothers the best a young boy can, he changes diapers and wipes their nose He dreams every day of being swept away and taken to where the wind blows “Let the winds blow me out of Harlem Let them blow me to Paradise Let the winds blow me away from here To a life that is really nice” He finds himself in prison again; he’s been here half his life When his mother never made it home again, he had to steal food just to stay alive His brothers have been taken away from him, landing in prisons of their own A prison cell with a bed inside, is the closest thing he’s had to a home He sleeps with one eye opened, fearing his cellmates as well as the guards He has to fight to gain a level of respect from the criminals out in the yards He reads everything he possibly can about life outside of his prison windows And fantasizes about the day he can drift off to where the wind blows “Let the winds blow me out of Riker’s Island Let them blow me to Paradise Let the winds blow me away from here To a life that is really nice” He lays in a pool of his own blood from the gunshots in his chest He tried to change his lot in life but fell short of passing that test No opportunities were ever offered him to live a life free of crime Nobody was there to show him how; no one ever took the time Twenty-eight years old is too young to die, but he had nothing left to loose With the only option of going to prison again, this is the road that he did choose He hoped to go to a better place as he saw the afterlife glows And finally let his soul go free and be taken to where the wind blows “Let the winds blow me out of my body Let them blow me to Paradise Let the winds blow me away from here To a life that is really nice”