Nothing Is Different
By Michelle R. Smith
I.
I never knew how much I needed strangers until now. A part of me lived
off their smiles – cheap plastic conversations on escalators & store lines.
Sweet little pieces of heart candy. It is just three months into the lockdown & already I miss faces. I miss voices. I do better (fat, afro(,)(-)femme) when the worry in their eyes is balanced by the wish in their words. I want to get along too. I want to stay safe. So I stoop away from cops. I still smile,
even with my mouth hidden.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed. I try to let everyone know:
I am not the threat.
They say this virus is worse for people like me & every time I hear it
I wonder:
Do they mean the slightly blacker loneliness of living behind two masks at the same time?
II.
I am hardly ever alone now – even hiding in this bedroom, away from
my daughter. Her questions, her commands, her hundred noises, necessary & not.
I am never to myself. Every version of me is on call at once. Everything is different. Nothing has changed. I still operate on the schedule of a little girl – her anger, her terrors & her hungers; it is still my job to be magic.
To take the dirty dishes, sweaty clothes, glitches in the wi-fi, clogs in the toilet, rumbles in the tummy, itches in the knee-bends, tiny invisible monsters in the air & make them all disappear.
III.
In slavery, our people lived off salt pork, corn, yams if they were lucky, field peas if they could find them. No milk for their bones. No beef for their blood. No eggs for their eyes.
They fought tetanus, diptheria, typhoid, tuberculosis, hepatitis, in the swelter of sun & rage. They got wine as medicine, quarantine as therapy, death as cure.
Blame as punishment.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed.
It is May 2020: My people are pastured in hot spots – penned in our dispossession.
We are still the essential, unloved children of that bloody-handed bastard Uncle Sam.
IV.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed.
I am sheltered in this backhanded privilege called America.
I am poor, but I am eating. I have a roof, but I am homeless. I am making it. I am hardly hanging on. I am crying at the slightest thing, laughing at the slightest thing, missing a past I never wanted, living a history no one would foresee.
I am angry at this fate. I am terrified of the future. I am happy at the oddest moments.
I am through with all of this.
I am afraid – to get sick, to die.
I do not have insurance.
I am here – still – breathing –
By Michelle R. Smith
I.
I never knew how much I needed strangers until now. A part of me lived
off their smiles – cheap plastic conversations on escalators & store lines.
Sweet little pieces of heart candy. It is just three months into the lockdown & already I miss faces. I miss voices. I do better (fat, afro(,)(-)femme) when the worry in their eyes is balanced by the wish in their words. I want to get along too. I want to stay safe. So I stoop away from cops. I still smile,
even with my mouth hidden.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed. I try to let everyone know:
I am not the threat.
They say this virus is worse for people like me & every time I hear it
I wonder:
Do they mean the slightly blacker loneliness of living behind two masks at the same time?
II.
I am hardly ever alone now – even hiding in this bedroom, away from
my daughter. Her questions, her commands, her hundred noises, necessary & not.
I am never to myself. Every version of me is on call at once. Everything is different. Nothing has changed. I still operate on the schedule of a little girl – her anger, her terrors & her hungers; it is still my job to be magic.
To take the dirty dishes, sweaty clothes, glitches in the wi-fi, clogs in the toilet, rumbles in the tummy, itches in the knee-bends, tiny invisible monsters in the air & make them all disappear.
III.
In slavery, our people lived off salt pork, corn, yams if they were lucky, field peas if they could find them. No milk for their bones. No beef for their blood. No eggs for their eyes.
They fought tetanus, diptheria, typhoid, tuberculosis, hepatitis, in the swelter of sun & rage. They got wine as medicine, quarantine as therapy, death as cure.
Blame as punishment.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed.
It is May 2020: My people are pastured in hot spots – penned in our dispossession.
We are still the essential, unloved children of that bloody-handed bastard Uncle Sam.
IV.
Everything is different. Nothing has changed.
I am sheltered in this backhanded privilege called America.
I am poor, but I am eating. I have a roof, but I am homeless. I am making it. I am hardly hanging on. I am crying at the slightest thing, laughing at the slightest thing, missing a past I never wanted, living a history no one would foresee.
I am angry at this fate. I am terrified of the future. I am happy at the oddest moments.
I am through with all of this.
I am afraid – to get sick, to die.
I do not have insurance.
I am here – still – breathing –
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