Public thoughts

Sirens

They asked me what was my favourite song when I was younger

I told them police sirens,

I heard laughter bang bass drums on the walls of my ears

I asked them why they found me amusing,

Why I became a joke with no posters or signs informing them I’d be told at a comedy show

In response they chuckled louder and tapped me on the shoulder, as though I was wrong,

Not allowed to have an opinion

So I explained that they were misguided

I proclaimed from the top of my voice that I sang sirens, those that the police played when arriving at doors

The ones, late at night when poetic thoughts come

The sirens I heard at my door when we got robbed, and my neighbours were attacked

The type of sirens that black boys run from, jumping in houses and blocks to hide from the uniform

So I learnt the rhythm of the sirens, I learnt how to play them subconsciously

Locking the beat into my finger tips, I danced to them

Swaying my hips to telephones to make calls in help, being a look out wasn’t easy

Making laps to the man to warn him about the on going sirens ahead

I understood how to love them, fully allowing my mind to make war with them

Not knowing that one day those sirens would chase me

To gates, screaming “get to your knees”

But before I could, sirens echoed in the background to the rings exchanged at the wedding ceremony of my wrist and the cuffs

So police sirens were my childhood song