steriojoe2025 featuring AI Gemini

Was it birthing wall scribbling
Turfing wars of youth
Truth came for no answers we had
Future’s filled by emptiness
Love crippled just like obsession
I hurt in ya pain buddy
Missing our old painful joys
Playing in gardens of concrete
Standing by our feared bondge
Not once did your violence scare
Every crying fist i kissed
Great crack
Endless crack
Timeless crack
Your more than Bro
Your blood has seen sweet insanity
On the working class battle fields
The poppy seeds slay relentlessly
Dragon chasers remain timeless.

Poem by steriojoe.
Image by steriojoe

AI Geminis write.

Here is the poem formatted to honor the raw emotion and imagery of the work, paired with the credit you provided.

​Bro………was it?

​Was it birthing wall scribbling

Turfing wars of youth

Truth came for no answers we had

Future’s filled by emptiness

Love crippled just like obsession

I hurt in ya pain buddy

Missing our old painful joys

Playing in gardens of concrete

Standing by our feared bondge

Not once did your violence scare

Every crying fist i kissed

Great crack

Endless crack

Timeless crack

Your more than Bro

Your blood has seen sweet insanity

On the working class battle fields

The poppy seeds slay relentlessly

Dragon chasers remain timeless.

​Poem and Image by steriojoe

​A Note on the Work:

This is a gritty, visceral piece of writing. The juxtaposition of “gardens of concrete” and “working class battle fields” paints a vivid picture of a hard-fought youth. The ending lines regarding the “poppy seeds” and “dragon chasers” bring a heavy, mournful reality to the “sweet insanity” mentioned earlier. It captures a bond that is forged in struggle—where even the violence (“crying fist”) is met with understanding rather than fear.

Would you like me to analyze the symbolism in a specific line, or help you format this for a specific platform?

Since you said “yes,” I’ll dive into an analysis of the symbolism in this piece. It is a deeply layered poem where the imagery does a lot of the heavy lifting to explain a complex, painful friendship.

​Here is a breakdown of the key symbols in “Bro………was it?”:

​1. “Gardens of Concrete”

​Playing in gardens of concrete / Standing by our feared bondge

• ​The Symbol: The “garden” is usually a place of life and growth, but here it is made of “concrete.”
• ​The Meaning: This represents a childhood where softness was impossible. You had to grow up in a hard, unyielding environment.
• ​“Feared bondge”: This likely refers to “bondage” or a bond that feels like a trap. It suggests that your connection wasn’t just friendship—it was a survival pact. You were tied together by the environment you grew up in.

​2. “Every crying fist i kissed”

​Not once did your violence scare / Every crying fist i kissed

• ​The Symbol: A fist is usually a symbol of aggression or threat. Here, it is described as “crying.”
• ​The Meaning: This is arguably the most powerful line in the poem. The narrator possesses a deep empathy; they see past the physical violence to the emotional pain driving it. Instead of fighting back or running away, the narrator offers love (“kissed”) to the source of the violence. It shows an unconditional, almost tragic loyalty.

​3. “The Crack”

​Great crack / Endless crack / Timeless crack

• ​The Symbol: The repetition of the word “crack.”
• ​The Meaning: This acts as a triple entendre (a word with three meanings):
  1. ​The Drug: Given the later references to poppy seeds, this likely alludes to crack cocaine.
  2. ​The Banter: In UK/Irish slang, “good crack” (craic) means good fun or conversation.
  3. ​The Fracture: A break in the timeline, a break in the mind, or the breaking of the person. The progression from “Great” to “Endless” to “Timeless” suggests something that started as fun or a high, but became a permanent, inescapable void.

​4. “The Poppy Seeds” and “Dragon Chasers”

​The poppy seeds slay relentlessly / Dragon chasers remain timeless.

• ​The Symbol: “Poppy seeds” (Heroin/Opioids) and “Chasing the dragon” (smoking heroin).
• ​The Meaning: The poem frames addiction not as a choice, but as war (“working class battle fields”). The poppy seeds “slay” like an enemy army.
• ​“Timeless”: This is a haunting word to end on. It implies that while the world moves on, the “dragon chasers” are stuck in a loop, frozen in time by their addiction, or perhaps “timeless” because they passed away young and will never age.

​Summary of Themes

​The poem explores the duality of pain and love. It suggests that in a hard environment (“working class battle fields”), love often looks like shared trauma. The tragedy is that the bond formed in the “concrete gardens” is eventually severed by the “poppy seeds.”