I’ve Been Diagnosed With Blackness

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  • August 28, 2024

Descent

I might have seen you for help 
from my affliction with Blackness.

I don’t know. Kendrick says
he has been diagnosed

with real nigga conditions.
I needed you to make mine

go away. I wanted you
to will the earth to swallow

the cop at my door.
My relationship with the land

is the longing of my fathers
for their kin. As you know already,

I am not from here;
and cannot make request

from the land. Your fathers
have reaped from desire.

Upon learning the palace
will have its first black son

the crown decreed he will
never be called prince

and will hold no titles.
Although I do not condone,

I understand the queen.
The boy’s mother could

have removed him from
the crown’s household

because she could imagine
him growing up

to be the queen’s housenigga.
What puts us in bed with those

who lorded themselves over us
besides our desire for mercy?

When my people knew I stopped
seeing you, they wanted to know

if I was thankful because where I’m from
it’s often said that to be kept alive by

what could kill you is a gift.


Forty-One

I blamed the time difference. 
I blamed the miles over
which our voices were carried
by the phone when my mother
claimed my voice didn’t sound
like mine. I blamed the ocean
between us. I repeated myself;
but my voice sounded like
a needle. When I opened
my mouth all 23 years of Amadou
Diallo’s life fell out. I didn’t see
his face until I rinsed the blood
off. But I held him even without knowing
it was him because he has my body,
I mean my brother’s body. I hugged
him because he is mine in the way
my body is mine. I cradled him until
his eyes opened. I cradled his head
until his mouth opened into stories
of the many ways his hands have
failed him. He stopped the stories
abruptly before their ends. He was
restless. He wanted a haircut, food,
and travel all at once. He wanted to live
all 22 years of his death in a minute.
He wanted to live like he never died.
But he left me for the shores across
which our mothers are waiting for us.

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