After After

I have thought many times about what I shall do after I write this. But now is still before, and this is before, but having said such, it is also after. I have spent many months thinking about before, before before, when things were better. Except things were never better: I was only blinder, before I knew, before I knew that I didn't know, before I knew what I now know after. I spend equally as much time imaging after after. I had a dream: I have a dream about after, after I can see whole faces again, after black faces and brown faces aren't held after white faces, after my faces face each other and I face each of them after my before is after, when I am after my before. I wonder about the weight of holding hands, how light they felt before, though before before when holding his hand was like holding a mine somewhere beneath our feet, set there some time before, and maybe it would detonate after we set upon if if we didn't hold still. And after after, I wonder how heavy our hands will be, when I haven't held a hand in so long, not since before. I remember before when I ate better and ran often and lost thirty pounds. And I think often after before when I gained back forty and I wonder now what I'll wear after after when people see more than my upper torso, since my shoulders fit about as well in my shirts after as before even if the bottom seams ride up my stomach after I switched to only elastic waistbands before. There is too much before to be mindful of what was before before, and I know there is too little after after to be certain of what will still exist after what happened before and after what killed before kills even more even after who was here before is replaced with the person after him. I have spent too much time staring after after, ignoring before before, and I commit, I cannot linger, must admit there is no after after when what I am, where I am, when I am is neither before nor after but now, and now, after before but still before after, I have neither before nor after to look for.

“After After” is after a poem in Jameson Fitzpatrick’s book Mr. & called “The Genius of Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With,” which is itself after a paragraph in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. Even poems, not only poets, can have their own lineage.

Digital Delinquency

“Let‘s watch some commercials,”
she said, “to show how overwhelming
social justice is.” So we followed
the next link in the sidebar,
searching “commercials featuring
black people.”
I wish we hadn’t hit enter
hadn’t hit that triangular play button
and sat back in horror
as it streamed forward
the most obscene cartoon I have ever seen
in Lazy Town, those men of color
caricatures like primates
was it the derogative that shaped the animation
or the comic that coined the word
and my hand covered my mouth
my muscles trembling, heart beating in time
how many children had watched this?

Repentance

I want you to be angry
but your anger scares me
You are not overly sensitive
but I have been sensitized
to ideas that aren’t there
to violence and black men’s arms
and ripped muscles strangling
the air from white girls’ lungs
overpowered and taken by the dark
I want to be angry
that I can write these words
without thinking
that I can spew prejudice
from my lips
with as little effort as breathing
I want to be angry that your dark skin
reminds me of that playground bully
who wouldn’t let me go down the slide
when I was six or seven
because then he wasn’t just a child
like I was just a child
he was a little black boy
and he was mean to me
And it’s easy to be angry
at you
because the TV tells me it’s okay
because anger begets anger
and if you’re already on fire
then I can douse you in flames
But I’d rather be angry at me
that I hold these strings together
when I want the tapestry to unravel
that I hold onto these scars
when I want my wounds to heal
because I want to be sensitive
but not desensitized
so I suffer by your side
for all the harms I have inflicted
for all the lives I have ended
for all the people I haven’t seen
for all the voices I haven’t heard
for all the hands I refused to hold