Hanif Abdurraqib
At The House Party Where We Found Out Whitney Houston Was Dead
I am tucked in the corner, underneath a choir of arching floorboards
wailing for sympathy from about four dozen relentless feet, and I am telling Jasmine
that there is like, ONE song that everyone at this party knows all of the words to.
I tell her that we were all born of the 80’s. All born of parents
who watched the revolution shove itself into a too small suit at the turn of a decade that
left them in homes with welcome mats that read:
“Your hearts are the lost luggage at the airport of the next generation.”
I tell her because of this
we have earned one song we all know the words to, in the same way we have earned
this breeze, sitting on top of our skin tonight and staying, the way any good apology does
while we scroll through our iPods shouting out the names of 80’s pop songs we
both kind of love like a secret, and we keep scrolling right up until
someone runs into this room that is over capacity by at least nine righteous, glowing bodies
and tells us that Whitney Houston woke up dead
in Los Angeles two hours ago. Our friend Amber is like
five PBRs deep, and drunk enough to yell at her boyfriend
for the Whitney Houston-less iPod he has been using to DJ this party.
We, the war generation. The only way we know how to bury our dead
is with sweat
or blood
or sex
or anything pouring from a body to signify we were here, and the wooden floor
of a basement belonging to an old house on Neil Avenue
makes as good a burial ground as any, Says the small boom box now playing DJ
in the center of this room, and the Whitney CD inside, pouring out of the speakers
just loudly enough to let everyone in this room get a small taste of Whitney alive
and young, and telling us exactly how to squeeze exactly what we are owed
out of this Saturday. On a night when I don’t understand where love lives
in the way I will understand where love lives in coming months, but I understand
there is a saxophone solo at about 3 minutes and 30 seconds
into the song “How Will I Know”, and I’m pretty sure love has a vacation home there,
and we are all invited tonight when steam rises off of these bodies
like a sacrifice and the first time I see Jasmine cry is when we are watching all of our friends
convert grief into perspiration. I tell her that I see our reflection
in the pools of sweat, and we look like two flowers
that have never stop opening, I say,
We be bloomed so wide by the end of this night won’t nothing in this city be able to hold us
later, we press our backs into the roof of a house that even at 4am
sways with us like a metronome of well-timed memorial. The sky is
unchained, and careless, and wrapped around us both like our long discarded childhoods.
I look up and ask myself again why the stars have so long tolerated
the audacity of clouds. I laugh loudly and tell Jasmine that it is
impossible for a human being to wake up dead.
She is already asleep.
Hanif Abdurraqib writes poems when he is not sitting in his Columbus, Ohio apartment eating red velvet cake, or judgmentally thumbing through your record collection. His first collection of poems, Three Crosses, was released in December 2012, and his second collection, Sons of Noah, is forthcoming from Tired Hearts Press. He wants you to tell him your top 5 albums of all time.
At The House Party Where We Found Out Whitney Houston Was Dead
I am tucked in the corner, underneath a choir of arching floorboards
wailing for sympathy from about four dozen relentless feet, and I am telling Jasmine
that there is like, ONE song that everyone at this party knows all of the words to.
I tell her that we were all born of the 80’s. All born of parents
who watched the revolution shove itself into a too small suit at the turn of a decade that
left them in homes with welcome mats that read:
“Your hearts are the lost luggage at the airport of the next generation.”
I tell her because of this
we have earned one song we all know the words to, in the same way we have earned
this breeze, sitting on top of our skin tonight and staying, the way any good apology does
while we scroll through our iPods shouting out the names of 80’s pop songs we
both kind of love like a secret, and we keep scrolling right up until
someone runs into this room that is over capacity by at least nine righteous, glowing bodies
and tells us that Whitney Houston woke up dead
in Los Angeles two hours ago. Our friend Amber is like
five PBRs deep, and drunk enough to yell at her boyfriend
for the Whitney Houston-less iPod he has been using to DJ this party.
We, the war generation. The only way we know how to bury our dead
is with sweat
or blood
or sex
or anything pouring from a body to signify we were here, and the wooden floor
of a basement belonging to an old house on Neil Avenue
makes as good a burial ground as any, Says the small boom box now playing DJ
in the center of this room, and the Whitney CD inside, pouring out of the speakers
just loudly enough to let everyone in this room get a small taste of Whitney alive
and young, and telling us exactly how to squeeze exactly what we are owed
out of this Saturday. On a night when I don’t understand where love lives
in the way I will understand where love lives in coming months, but I understand
there is a saxophone solo at about 3 minutes and 30 seconds
into the song “How Will I Know”, and I’m pretty sure love has a vacation home there,
and we are all invited tonight when steam rises off of these bodies
like a sacrifice and the first time I see Jasmine cry is when we are watching all of our friends
convert grief into perspiration. I tell her that I see our reflection
in the pools of sweat, and we look like two flowers
that have never stop opening, I say,
We be bloomed so wide by the end of this night won’t nothing in this city be able to hold us
later, we press our backs into the roof of a house that even at 4am
sways with us like a metronome of well-timed memorial. The sky is
unchained, and careless, and wrapped around us both like our long discarded childhoods.
I look up and ask myself again why the stars have so long tolerated
the audacity of clouds. I laugh loudly and tell Jasmine that it is
impossible for a human being to wake up dead.
She is already asleep.
Hanif Abdurraqib writes poems when he is not sitting in his Columbus, Ohio apartment eating red velvet cake, or judgmentally thumbing through your record collection. His first collection of poems, Three Crosses, was released in December 2012, and his second collection, Sons of Noah, is forthcoming from Tired Hearts Press. He wants you to tell him your top 5 albums of all time.