FreezeRay:  Poetry With A Pop
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Taylor Steele

If A Black Woman Became The Joker
 
I wish I could remember the first time I held a knife. Perhaps an Independence Day              and
gramma’s potato salad, the pre-cise chop of                      soft thing.
 
Now, there is a dying black boy on my bed; plant a flag-shovel here and call it our-his home. I catch all his
blood-sweat in my mouth-hands, and I can’t help      but laugh. He is just so beautiful,     a joke made as the sky falls.
 
I must have felt    so    alive that first time, so I try    to relive what it might have been.           I find
the bodied,            examine their wounding,         the face — was it a happy one? Must not have been,
must’ve been
      why I started carving smiles in every dead   black    boy      I came across. It shouldn’t have been
as easy as it was — the finding,                    the carving.  But a dead black boy     is as common as a fist in a
fight, whether that be:                                    brawl, womb, mouth.
                     And a knife is a gilded angel,          a dead black boy’s snapped halo sharpened by a prayer’s
teeth. A knife is a miracle. How it gifts me the ability to turn back                               time for the dead
                                 black boys.   Building them a new    last moment, one    where gunshots are
balloons         p o p p i n g, and the lack of sirens                                  is the lull before    everyone jumps out    from
behind   the couch to yell                   HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
 
Now, there is a dying black    boy on my bed,  like a dream  whispered so soft,
      you'd think it was a ghost. He's almost      a ghost. Not in the almost-white way, but        in his
willowing wind breath and how it shivers my spine.     He wants help, and I                    tell him that's what I’m
doing.  He heaves a cry, eyes pointing at the knife in my hand.
        And I know a part of him      knows he'll be gone soon, and not at my hands. I simply found
him,  an almost-roadkill.  The badges, too distracted trying                    to find a decent enough lie to hide
this black boy inside of, didn't notice
me dragging the black    on top of the black     through the black     to the black.     What you need
to understand is,         he’s gonna die    regardless. He would never have been  avenged. The only
question now is:
 
do you wanna die with a smile on your face? Or, I can wait ‘til you’re dead. Either way, you’re gonna be found
grinning. Either way, my lasting image of you will be a happy one. I never get to see that, ya know? See black boys go out          happy.

Taylor Steele is a Bronx-born, Brooklyn-based writer, educator and performer. Her work can be found at  Apogee Journal, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Rogue Agent, Blackberry: a Magazine, and more. Her chapbook "Dirty.Mouth.Kiss" is available on Pizza Pi Press. Taylor has written for The Body is Not an Apology, Anomalous Press (formerly Drunken Boat Journal), and Philadelphia Printworks. An internationally ranked spoken word artist, she has been featured by Huffington Post, Brooklyn Poets, Button Poetry and is a 2016 Pushcart Nominee. Most importantly, Taylor is a triple-Taurus who believes in the power of art to change, shape, and heal.

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