I got a friend who tells me, Said, you might have a chance to get out of this country and live your overseas dreams. But realize that you’re one in a million. How many people will have that same opportunity? How many people are just as smart, dedicated and hardworking as you but won’t ever get to realize that dream – because they have families, because they have debt, because they have obligations keeping them from chasing down those dreams?
I looked back at him and said you have a point. And I wish I could let them all live out their dreams. But I’ve sacrificed a lot for this country. A lot for my sanity. And I can’t go back. I can’t stay here. I have to go back. I have to leave here.
What are you talking about, he said. You’re not making any sense.
I mean I can’t live here. Everyday in this country is like… like… like, I can’t even say bro.
What you saying, bro?
I don’t even know any—-. I don’t recognize myself —more.
If you’re black in this country, your body knows. It separates you from your mind. You feel the pain thrice: once on your skin, once in your heart. And a third in your mind.
What does it even mean to write?
I have people in this world who care about me so deeply. And I them. Sometimes I wonder, I the speaker, I the writer, I the person behind the keyboard, all of I; sometimes we wonder what it would look like for Said to love Said how Said loves everyone else. How everyone who loves Said loves Said. Not like how Kanye loves Kanye. Or maybe a little bit of that. Because to love one’s self requires a certain amount of selfishness. Where does the selfish stop? Where does the love start? Where is the love, me, where is it in I?
I so very often find myself surrounded by words. Ones I wrote, ones which comfort. Ones which disturb, written by others. I so very much wish the world existed more on the page than on the stage of reality. Wish we could write ourselves into books. Wish I could (we could) write myself (ourselves) some never-ending confidence. Wish that every day was as slow as Sunday; that writing deadlines didn’t exist. That Football never went off TV, and that those who played it didn’t risk their lives on every play for my entertainment. Wish I didn’t find comfort in the decimation of black bodies live every Sunday. How can I change? How can I learn to love myself again? I think, the real question here, is did I ever love myself to begin with? And if so, who robbed me of that love?
Where did our love go?