IT WAS NEVER BACK V STRAW.
It was
Back v Bills
Back v Assumptions
Back v Complaints
Back v Existing
Back v Caregiving
Back v Do you have dot dot dot…
Back v Do this one more task
in order to properly let me know
how I can unburden your burden.
It’s Back v I hate your face
because it’s like reading Arabic when I only read Latin characters.
It’s Back v Genetic traces and markers of
thalassemia,
of disease susceptibility,
of generational CPTSD.
It is Back versus
May I see your ID
even though I saw each of you just swipe your way in or
may I see your license
because your car is too nice and you are too midnight.
It’s Back versus
Are you sure you wrote this?
Did you use AI?
ChatGPT?
I think you plagiarized.
It’s Back verses
You did well,
gave it your all,
went above and beyond but
to get to the next step you need to do a bit more,
go farther, further yonder to that distant carrot of goal.
It’s really
Back v Lungs ‘cause Lungs couldn’t filter the smog,
Back v Tongue ‘cause Tongue didn’t taste the lead or
legionnaires,
Back v Stomach ‘cause Stomach consumed heavy empty
calories,
Back v Skin ‘cause Skin wasn’t thick enough to be barrier
from the rest.
It is Back v Chromosomes,
v Uteruses
v Useless linings
v Fibroids
v Pads, tampons, discs, cups, rings, shots, IUDs, crusty old
lawmakers.
It’s also Back v Ears
that can’t hear “no” and/or doctors
that don’t believe in pain or pain relief.
It was never Straw.
Could not have been.
It was:
the many foot stomps,
ponytail flips,
hair petting and/or
English to English translating.
Straw was innocent,
was at the wrong place at the wrong time,
was hanging out in the park at the same time of the crime
but Straw had nothing to do with it,
it didn’t act in concert,
it ain’t seen a thing.
There’s no evidence,
but Straw was detained,
left in jail for years pending
a hearing, pending
a trial, pending
a preordained guilty verdict.
Twenty years,
forty-five years,
better yet
death be the sentence.
Straw drew the short odds.
Though, eventually,
posthumously,
the conviction will be vacated.
Straw will be vindicated.
But some will double down,
they will still point and say,
“It was Straw that did the deed,”
and Back being the victim
will simply spotlight its victimhood,
never naming the actual culprit.
KRISPIES
SNAP goes necks that
experience whiplash
at the sound.
It all happened in a
snap.
CRACK goes the hearts
and minds and households
of those left behind.
All known as normal
now crac-ked.
...pop, pop, pop…
….P O P….
POP
goes the gun.
POP
goes the life.
POP
goes the dreams.
POP goes...
Pops, Mom, Bro, Sis, Cuz, Fam, Homie… Baby…
POP goes those
with brown skin.
And well, the killer,
the shooter,
they’re systemically
trained,
inspired,
designed,
fortified…
The snap, crackle and pop,
fed at breakfast,
and consumed by dinner.
There are no winners.
No prizes in the box,
just bodies boxed.
Pop, then crack, then snap.
POP THEM PILLS
I raged when my therapist said
I was getting dark,
the signs were there,
I needed a script.
How dare I need to be the one on meds?
Had he not looked at the insane?
This is not normal,
yet I was the one losing my brain?
And what’s wrong with laying in bed all day?
If others can call out sick
can’t I call out depressed?
What I would give for mundane,
but black girls don’t get joy,
we get pain,
our backs ache from the burden,
our uteruses scream murder,
our curves dissected,
our ears burn from ire…
I’m fucking tired.
He said those words
after I experienced
a racist incident, after
a “friend” threatened my wellbeing, and
a venomous ex labeled me the problem
all while I fretted about
failing the person in my care.
Who would want to be here?
But I’m here…
…so after grinding
my teeth flat from fuming,
I was prescribed the “remedy”.
I take my meds,
though it be
grudgingly.
Why must I be drugged
when our government
supplied them to my community,
then imprisoned my kin
for trying to escape the madness of reality,
a reality crafted for them?
For us?
Yet I’m the one insane?
I am the issue
when the people
charged with overseeing my behaviors
tried to summons me
for a bottle of pop in a paper bag.
Thankfully, I didn’t have
skittles in my pocket
‘cause my overalls and hoodie
almost became my death outfit—
my comfy fit was
almost my last.
Them overseers ain’t never tried to help me,
only made me feel stupid
when I complained about being stalked, or
told them about my emptied account, or
for finally reporting my rape…
the story sounded more like remorse
than injury or pain.
It’s amazing I am not
in front of a train…
or… well… under it…
….
Though Lexapro and I fought,
meds made vacant those thoughts.
Passive ideations the diagnosis.
Most times I wasn’t planning actively,
but my brain was always
running from this existence moving
through the streets like I was George Bailey…
I knew at 13,
at 10,
at 7
this life wasn’t it.
I heard it every day as dad
complained of discrimination,
as we made fun of the wish
for us to get along, as
Crown Heights went up in flames, and
when five of my brothas were caged.
What was so wonderful about
being sun-kissed when the only bell ringing
was for the funeral service
that was supposed to be a wedding?
Why would I want any part of this scene?
Especially when Zoloft
savagely punched jaws.
Yeah, this,
here,
is the madness,
the upside down that was
never actually upside down
while the emotion on my face
is supposed to be upside down
for the comfort of those
that revel in my discomfort…
Yeah… I take these pills.
The Prozac zaps my brain just enough
to not flip the table when
icicles penetrated a citizen’s face,
called it a crime scene,
and then drove home
to murder again tomorrow.
This happens again and again…
…the sorrow… but
they say “here, take some soma.
The ride’s just started and you betas,
gammas, deltas and epsilons
have work to do,
gotta keep the 1% high in the sky
eating their pie and figgy pudding.”
We are to keep putting up with it all,
and if we protest too loudly,
if we vote too powerfully,
the right will be stripped…
better pop them pills and go on that trip.
I pop the pills trying not to trip
each time my reflection is slain or
each time my abusers PTSD me…
every morning I digest the mess.
I should be used to the trauma, they say…
should see things optimistically
but those of us in reality
will be depressed.
How can you see clearly
and not see unjust with every step.
And it wasn’t missed
that as I stepped out a franchised restaurant
someone across the street slept
under the ass end of a metal horse
at another chain…
We are all in chains…
The sleeper… the awake…
I’m just proud that my liver
ain’t swim down the drain,
but I stay sober ‘cause
someone’s got to document,
and when I die from a heart attack
with my pen in hand and
a bottle of Wellbutrin on the table,
I hope you notice the insanity of my life,
and name me the sanest.
WHAT WE COULD BE
Built on the grave of the old,
this is the new America.
As the darkest day approaches
so does the week of celebration.
All gather in town centers
to study and question
and learn from the time before,
the time before
Butler’s predictions became truth.
Before she penned the signs
of the dictators to be,
that wanted to make America so great.
It was so great,
that it broke,
and shattered,
from the pressures
of its own gaslit air.
Wild flames spewed
from their hate…
But this was a new America
a place where folks gathered annually
and honored the never again slogan,
meaning it this time.
Their opening
and closing prayer.
They tefloned their books—
fireproofing them.
They read the histories,
not from the self-proclaimed victors,
but the victims.
The narratives of the enslaved
and indigenous
and the interned
and the exported
and extorted,
were the guiding lights.
And after we grieved for those
that were not here,
we danced with great jubilation
for our liberation.
We swung arms and
stomped feet and
gyrated waists
to our beloved Cyberfunk,
the music—
its tones,
its bass,
its rhythms
moving our bodies for hours
until the funk emanating
was sweet.
This earth was healthy,
for we took it back
to that of the time of our cowboys—
no—
our cowmen,
who really helped care for this land
after the smallpox brigade
ravaged and raped the soil of original inhabitants.
We toiled to bring her back.
Never will we return.
Never will I let it.
