Ex-Poet

“Where dead men sleep in palaces, surely the living must be living in paradise.”

Fatou Diome, The Belly of the Atlantic

I’m not sure what to call this awkward phase of my life – undesired growth? Hoping for something to save me? Wishing I had the _____ to save myself? I reminisce, now, on that perfect week in Berkely, on writing retreat.

Praying Fajr, quiet, in a rented room off Shattuck Ave. Air BnB hosts let me use their bike to get around the city. The first time I ate Halal Guys, so bomb. Biked to meet the homie Ghost at his sister’s place by the waterfront. Prayed with him for the first time since Borama. Sunset, smiling, laughing.

Sitting in Berkely, watching the sun dip, remembering sunsets in Borama, like the sky was falling, the clouds left broken by the passing storm.

Real writers go to work like robots, every day. I must not be real. It takes some writers years to learn that kind of discipline, watching those years slip by, another gray chin hair pops out, another promotion and award at work. Another child born in an uncertain world.

I wonder if I’ll ever be a real writer? When did I stop believing in myself? Was I not real at all those open mics – in parks and coffee shops, house parties and performance spaces – on the open streets at midnight, on the light rail at broad day – on the corner of Pine & Broadway?

Was I not a poet then?

Am I still not a poet now?

Do I not deserve to make it – I mean, make it, make it?

To let myself be real on the page and make it to the mountain top?

Am I not a poet?

Am I not a man, Black?

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