The Aftermath
Experiences of disembodiment from the lens of a brown (read black) body. *TW: Viral Black Death*
There are some names that when you google.
you will see the words...
"Was a victim of police brutality," or "who was lynched in Mississippi"
And by this, I mean there are some of us who will only be remembered for dying to a broken system.
Sometimes there are no words. There will be no entertainment from me today. This is not the first black body. This is not the first recording of a murder. The list of grievances is as long as I am tired. And for those of us whose hearts go on beating. Our tears are an ocean large enough to drown the world. We do not have to imagine, for we have already seen...
Sometimes I worry watching black folks get killed is eroding my humanity. Eroding my ability to believe in goodness. Eroding my ability to give a fuck if 45 dies from COVID. Eroding my ability to love? to trust? Eroding my ability to leave my house without looking over my shoulder.
I am tired of talking about what hurts.
I do not want to write a blues
but every time I open my mouth.
"Bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma/ I haven't conquered yet (Shange, 62)." In the book of my life this is the quote that best describes my relationship to blackness in the past year. Being alive and being woman and being black is a metaphysical dilemma I have not conquered yet and I am tired of writing about what hurts.
I used to be a person.
By this I mean I used to be a person who also happened to be black. And my blackness wasn’t always well received, but it was never all consuming.
My name is Mary and I love books. My personal library is color coordinated. The books I have loved and needed most have their own special bookshelf. It is half altar. Mine. When I was a child, I slept with books clutched to my chest. I get excited in bookstores and libraries but used books stores are my favorite. Worn books look like a love that I have known time and time again. I buy myself flowers every week. I have 17 plants in my room. They all have funny names like Pickle... Like Mayonnaise... Like the tiny cactus named Bob and from time to time I have been seen crazy eyed and screaming:
"YOU DO NOT HAVE MY PERMISSON TO DIE. LIVE YOU LITTLE MOTHEFUCKERS! FLOURISH!"
I like to dance on public transportation in the way that makes others uncomfortable. I am often wearing clashing and colorful clothing. I smile at strangers on the street. I flirt in grocery stores by saying things like "wow that is a nice beard." I study Medical Anthropology and Global Health, I have a 4.0, I am in the honors program and when I am not crying about how shitty the world is, I am hugging trees. I am building fairy houses with toddlers. I am smoking weed and laughing at Discovery Park. Running makes me feel alive. I dress up and go to auctions with best friends, we throw our paddles up quickly to enjoy the rush of pretending we have money to blow. Last winter, I was hiking Acatenango and falling in love with someone who carried my backpack up the mountain and read me bell hooks under the stars at basecamp. Last Winter I was learning how to believe.
Ahmuad Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Tony McDade. George Floyd. Rashard Brooks. Daniel Prude. Shaun Lee Fuhr.
These were not the first. These will not be the last...
My name is Mary...
I used to be a person who also happened to be black. My color-coded personal library has been reduced to a series of boxes in a storage unit. In a city I am no longer sure I will call home. I used to buy myself flowers. I used to dance on buses and in grocery stores. I used to smile at strangers. I used to have a 4.0. I used to run 25 miles a week and it made me feel alive. I used to believe in fairies. I used to believe in love. I used to sit in coffee shops writing things that made sense.
On the day that Trayvon Martin... On the day that Charleena Lyles... On the day that the Breonna Taylor verdict was to be delivered, I did not turn on my television. I did not check my phone. I did not sit on the edge of my seat waiting. Instead, I asked myself again...
Can black lives really matter?
No, not like chants in the streets.
Not like black boxes on socials.
Not like lawn signs, or t-shirts, or stickers.
But really...
Really like, no more spilled blood.
On January 6, 2021 I sat in my Mexico apartment puzzling like my life depended on it, smoking a joint, and live streaming CNN from my computer. If you want to know what terror feels like watch white supremacist trump supporters mobbing the capitol with no police intervention. To Serve and Protect Who? It is a question that has been asked again and again and even from Mexico City I am looking over my shoulder. I am not leaving my apartment...
Liberty and Justice for who?
Liberty and Justice when?
The answer comes again each day anew
Not today...
Not today but maybe soon.
Just don’t hold your breath
It is the morning of Joe Bidens inauguration. I awake at 2am in a full sweat, heart racing... I am full of panic. One hand over heart and belly, deep breaths. Inhale and exhale. slower and slower. I am trying to remind my body what it feels like to be okay, but the trembling does not stop, and it is so dark. I yearn to call my mom, to call my sister, to listen to the sound of their voices, to hear that they are alive and okay, but I am more worried about freaking them out. About passing on my panic. I don't call. Instead, I lay in the dark and self-regulate, instead I lay in the dark and try to think of anything else. I remind myself that the dream is not real. Is not real. I am trying to pull myself together. In the dream a white supremacist is pointing a gun at my sisters’ head. My niece is in the car, my mother is screaming, and we are all frozen in time. Reduced to begging.
A few days later my sister calls. She says she updated her life insurance policy.
"if anything, ever happened, I trust you."
"Well, I am sure nothing will happen."
Sometimes I worry there are nightmares in my DNA. Did my ancestors beg? Did they beg for their children not to be sold, beg for their sons and daughters not to be raped, beg for their husbands and wives not to be beaten and hung. Did their whole hearts drop? Were there days when the weight of helplessness threatened to crush them from the inside out? I want to say it cannot be known but it probably can, and I am trying to unlearn building worlds on fragile fantasies.
Ding dong 45 is gone. Two wrongs don't make a right. Why are you this angry? this sad, this heartbroken. Change is here. I did not watch the inauguration. I have not yet convinced my body that it is safe to believe.
Can black lives really matter?
No, not like chants in the streets.
Not like black boxes on socials.
Not like lawn signs, or t-shirts, or stickers.
But really... Really like, no more spilled blood.
This is not the essay I wanted to write.
I am tired of talking about what hurts.
I do not want to write a blues
but every time I open my mouth.
"bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma/ I haven't conquered yet (Shange, 62)." In the book of my life this is the quote that best describes my relationship to blackness in the past year. Being alive and being woman and being black is a metaphysical dilemma I have not conquered yet and I am tired of writing about what hurts.
My name is Mary and I...
well
I am trying to remember.