(1)
what it means to be black and
what it means to be black and what
it means to be black
it means black
it means what it means
black
to be what it means
to be black
it is something other people see on you
(or)
it is something you choose to culturally live through
(it)
what it means
to be black
it is what it means
it is black
what it means to be black is
it is not anything
i am not black
i am not white
and i don't want to talk about it.
(2)
when we say i am and then put just one thing in there as the predicate noun or nominative or
whatever
that is limiting
that is always limiting
that will always limit you
unless it is your name.
your name just the way you like it.
your name breathed out of a lover's lips
when your lover when your mother when your torturer when You (because I know sometimes you love yourself) know just the way you like it
your name is mostly given but it can chosen, found
i can be rejected and changed and played with
or it can be taken and you can say thank you
or you can be nameless and elude representation
All Together
elude definition,
dance with the impossibility of being reproduced,
you are not your name
I am not Aaron.
I am this
these breasts these feet these thighs you see
you know the names but you do not know them, you do not know me
and everyone i've ever let know them has hurt me has hit me but i'll never let you hit me
no ill just ask you to please don't hit me
and then you'll say sorry
and we'll be ok again
and everything will be ok again
and I won't have to talk about it.
I am not Aaron. I am not eRin. I am this I am this you can see me.
(3)
i like to give and i like to receive and i don't know which i like more and it does not matter.
jesus says to give so snakelike that your right hand doesn't even know what your left hand is doing
so when i went to a rally and looked like a lion and held a sign that said "tax the rich or we'll eat them" and i felt good
and i felt important and like i was doing something i should be doing
i think i was doing it wrong.
when you give me a dollar and feel good about it later, you are doing it wrong.
i never went back. i ignore their emails.
(4)
names are rich and dense and the closest to what we can do to talk about this essence of
these ass scents of
ourselves.
whose selves these selves to be self in selves to have self on my selves on my shelves i'm not quite sure
my friends and i laughed we joked we smiled we had fun hop scotching and playing capture the mother fucking flag on the story of Kunta Kinte, his name was not Toby
and we thought it was funny.
but he was a body no he was in a body no he was with a body that was no longer body but commodified property and he was bought and sold and so many were bought and sold and so many are still bought and sold and so many will never be told and so many with never grow old with the knowledge that their story
NO their stories
that their stories their histories will be honored because they will not be honored
13 year old assholes will laugh at them. and 35 year old assholes will call them savages.
We were doing nothing right
we had nothing right
we had nothing to give you
i have nothing to give you
it was not for your own good and I am sorry.
And GOD I can not speak for you
there is no justice there is no dignity in anyone speaking for you
but if I can, if you'll let me, I am just so sorry
(5)
Oh. Maybe the (I ams) quickly float away.
and maybe it is just the most effective way to say
that I am completely right now mostly just sorry.
That is all I am right now. in this moment.
what if one day we have to buy and sell moments? moments in our lives?
minutes in our lives at the end of our lives.
it seems next it seems not long after cell phones in our brains.
(6)
So my name, my name is my bumper sticker, and because it suits me maybe we can even call it catchy
because it makes easy what we are talking about we need it
because we need easy
we need to be able to talk about it
when you asked what god's bumper sticker would say I imagined it would be the bible.
the mother fuckers' Good Book and the Nag Hammadi too
because that's the best he could do
that's the best we could do
and the olyco
the budget fighters
the protest signers
their bumper stickers are many
but I held up one and I felt good but I felt bad too
because there was
so much more to say.
and Just Do It is a bumper sticker
and what it really says is to spend
so much money
that got so much value
from god knows where,
which is to say no one knows where,
which is to say that god is no one,
god is no one to the delicate fingers that put together your fresh new sneakers
that you should buy to make you a little fitter
a little hipper
Pundits speak in bumper stickers
and there are so many bumper stickers
that all we seem to have time for
are bumper stickers
because you can't refute a bumper sticker
in the time it takes to read one
You can't actually say anything between two commercial brake lights
(7)
I am something with blurry edges with no edges
and pain is something with blurry edges with no edges
and oppression is something with blurry edges with no edges
god why do we hate each other so much?
why do we hurt each other so much?
why do we feel good in knowing who we are
who taught me that easy is good
what it means to be black
what it means to be a woman
what does it mean to know this
to feel this
to be this
i am this.
please stop. please don't hit me, please don't hit him, please don't hit them
you don't have to hit them.
No one
really wants you
to hit them.
(8)
