Sorry I couldn’t respond to your email
I was too busy wondering if I’ll get lynched
You know, what with all these Nazis in the streets
Red hatted demons screaming niggers oughta bleed
.
Sorry I didn’t see your text
I was busy consoling my family
Telling them things will be okay
Even though I don’t believe my own words
.
Sorry I’m hard to reach
I’m in bed at morning o’clock 3
Scrolling articles scholarly
Trying to find proof that
Black people deserve to live
.
Sorry I’m unable to speak
Nor do I have the capacity
To write what I feel
It’s a hard time for all of us, right?
Well, not really. There’s levels to this.
.
Sorry you can’t see
Why Black ppl like me
Could care less bout politrickery
Dawg we just tryna breathe
.
This knot in my stomach looking like a Italian delicacy covered in garlic and herbs and butter and and and
My nigga I can’t sleep
Tossing and turning and acid reflux burning my esopheagal lining
Brother the tension in my back left shoulder blade is jabbing, stabbing, won’t let up
My therapist tells me it has something to do with mommy issues
All I know is trauma is a hard word to spell when it requires you to name those who caused it
As you speak to those who cause it
As you breathe through slow closing coffins
Sometimes it feels the world is closing
And no amount of sincere advice
Can keep it back
Sometiems you grow tired of these games
Can’t even muster strength to write
You pop Pepcid AC, chew on ginger, take dome shots of ACV no chaser
Still, you lay in bed, propped up on guilt and shame, double decker sandwiched in
.
I’m trying to slow down my breathing
Think mission beach
I don’t know who the I of this poem is anymore
I don’t know what I am anymore
Been a long time since I felt that way
I’m trying not to edit myself
Think too much
You think too much
Just let it flow
Thinking about the brother I ran into at the city view
Trying to get my mind off the election I
Brought three books with me, one of which twice misdelivered to my neighbor on the far side of the bridge
Bruh was smoking that loud pack
We did that Black man nod
Acknowledged one another’s presence in a world
That seeks to rid us of it
I sat down with my lemon ginger drink
Thumbed through book after book
Not really finding anything that stuck
I got up to stretch, hammies and calves
Thoguht in the back of head: hope that
his trees don’t make me catch a contact
Last thing I need is accidental inhalation
Vapors cause frustration
Make me stay up late and
Wish I could sleep
And now sleep is one thing I’ll always need
And if we can’t have it then
What the fuck are we breathing for
Breeding for
.
Back at the park now
See the skyline before me
Giant watertower behind me
Two white girls to the right of me
Thank God for these headphones
So I don’t have to listen to them drone
About this that and that third and Mitchell and Elliot Ness
And 3/5ths a man, no less
Anyway, after they left, and the space was safe for us to be ourselves again,
Brother man came up to me and asked if I had a pen
I said nah, I left it in the car
Looked at my stacks of books
Said, I know it’s a shame, how I don’t keep a pen
And the thing is I usually do
But today I wasn’t in no usual mood
So I paused for a moment, feeling I let my brother down
.
My mind takes its time sometimestimes well all the time
And it caught up and a thought occurred to me to say to the brother
Are you gonna be here for a while?
He says yeah
I says lemme run down to the car and grab that for ya
He said thank you, man. I got this idea and I wanna right it down.
I said I know exactly what you mean, with a smile and a knowing nod
Because I know better than nearly anyone what it means to try and grasp a fleeting thought
Write it down, wrangle before it flees
Especially when you got demons coming in to chase it away
White people call it anxiety
I call it let’s get free
.
SO anyway I’m heading down to the car and my ankle is hurt and I remember I ran three miles hard the other day so that I collapsed in a breathless heap when I was done, but I was like, you know, can’t thinka bout that now, gotta get this brother his pen, my pen, our pen, our skin, bonds us like glue in a place made for us to drown within ourselves.
I needed to perform this act of solidarity for my brother, to help him capture the thoughts he wanted – needed – to capture before they fled. Much like how white people want – no, need – to capture us before we flee; some things just can’t be helped.
Two black men just sitting there reflecting, high above the city, trying to escape its smothering whiteness, trying to breathe for a second, avoid the damn news and election results and social media and and and.
It was an act of radical solidarity, of brotherhood, for me to get him that pen. To dig around my car, all the way in the third row of seats, and come marching back that hill with a pen, victorious. Because I know what it means to be without pen, when you have so many thoughts clouding your head, struggling to find space.
I know what it means to be without just one thing that if you had it would make everything else that much easier.
I know what it means to be Black in this country, and no matter how many Biden posters you put on your front lawn, you will never know that meaning.
So step sending me your damn solidarity messages, without heart, in these trying times. Come on, now. Lie to yourself but don’t lie to me.
May Allah protect our sanity.