THE AUTISTIC LYNCHING EXPERIENCE

Racism is taking 10 years off of your life and they’re complaining about not getting published.

Because they’re “white and male in a world that treats it like a disability,”
they can’t publish.

Or maybe they can’t write.

You want to laugh, but you can’t, because death is always around the corner.

You are Black & Male with actual disabilities in a world that treats your body like a graveyard and so you laugh.

You see these people in their little awards ceremonies, their gala events.

They praise one another.

They praise themselves.

They praise one another.

And everything is fine in their little white world that never changes.

You know, they wish they could lynch us still.

You know that, don’t you?

Shit, they still lynch us.

They just wish it was still
socially acceptable today.

Just yesterday, ain’t they lynch
another brother on the train?

Wasn’t the lyncher a former marine?
Wonder if he lynched anyone overseas?

Wasn’t the lyncher’s daddy a former cop?

Wonder how many niggas he
lynched on the street?

Everyday, you look up and
wonder if this is the day.

There are no tears to be shed here.

There is only death, and it is always close.

You are grateful for faith,
for Allah, for Islam.

Lord knows you ain’t been praying lately.

You feel bad about this, but you understand.

You cry, but only when the tears rush
like levees breaking.

You hold it in, because to feel so deeply,
so constantly, is so unsustainable.

You remember days when you used to cry, wishing for an early death.

Now you laugh at the thought, because you know that is a near guarantee.

To be Black in this country, in this world? That early death is a guarantee.

You want to share some stats about early deaths, violent deaths, heart disease etc.

But you don’t really care. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, anyway.

Racism is the early death.
To be Black is to be dead.

You don’t care.
You want to smile, but you don’t care.

You are Autistic, which means
you feel everything.

Ten times over, you feel everything;
over and over.

You want to die some days,
but on your own terms.

You don’t want to be taken from this life.

You want to leave this earth
only as God intended.

You pray God hasn’t intended a violent death for you. You pray for the easy way.

You want to die, Black man,
because this can’t be life.

You were born in the prelude to war.

You were raised on the run.

You fetched water for your family.

Stood in long lines at the refugee camp.

You still have yet to find refuge,
in this life, on this earth.

You know that one day it will all make sense.

In heaven, it will all make sense.
You pray for heaven, for sense.

You haven’t heard the call to prayer in years.

You pray for sweet release,
for heaven’s gates.

You pray for an end to the pain.

You try not to let this weigh you down.

You are almost always down.

Tears of a clown.

So where is the hope in all this?

Death is the only hope.

And death is the greatest fear.

And death is the most fervent wish.

To live a life where death
is the only saving grace.

This is no life at all.

This is not a treatise for wanting to die.

This is a treatise for wanting a better world.

That any of us should feel this way is tragic.

That any of us should die in these ways…

Sometimes you wonder why your family chose to come to this country, of all countries, drenched in blood, built on lies, on backs of stolen Black bodies, whose last breath, on the Atlantic, was to hope for a quick death, at the bottom of a black ocean, beneath the wake, beneath even dreams.

But then you remember that
no one had a choice in any of this.

No one but the whites. They had a choice. But they have no souls.
And so they chose death.

They chose death for you
and everyone like you.

And now they invite you to their
awards ceremonies and gala events
and they smile in your face.

They smile in your face as if they wouldn’t lynch you in a heartbeat,
in a New York Minute.

As if they don’t lynch you on the page every day. As if they don’t lynch you in their minds.

As if they don’t lynch you every
time they jerk off to BBC porn.

And my how they used to jerk your BBC
right off your body and stuff it
right in your mouth.

And dance and sing and laugh around your burning corpse dangling from that tall tree.

And take pictures of it and invite loved ones to it and initiate their children through it.

My how they commemorate your death
in this country and then
broadcast it on the evening news.

My how they want to see you
dead in so many ways.

To kill you is not enough.

They want you to want to kill yourself.

Now THAT’S a declaration of independence.

This country is killing you but
you have no other home.

Some would say BUT WHAT OF SOMALIA?
IS AFRICA NOT HOME?

And you would reply: not one that I know.

One that I’ve lived on, that I’ve called home, but not one that I know.

And now you know that life isn’t an option, but neither is death.

So you write.

Dead birds fly through broken skies.

There is no life here, no hope.

There is only that hold choke.