Free

 

Kay L. Jordan

 

I declare myself free.

I declare, I declare, I declare—

 

I declare myself free.

 

It’s been so long since I’ve felt this good.

So long since I’ve been blessed with ease.

Because for so long I’ve been stressing.

 

Stressing Stressing Stressing—

 

Over those who scorn without reason.

Over those whispering my death ear to ear.

 

 

These people worship the path of a white god.

 

 

A white god, yeah a white god—

 

 

A he who pardons ethnic carnage.

 

 

A white god, a white god—

 

 

A he who preaches prejudice.

 

 

A white god, their white god— 

 

 

 

Bleeds segregation. Praises lynching as mere sport.

 

 

 

white god, white god, their white Racist god—

 

 

Heaves salt grinds in the whip wound lashes of slaves, slaves, slaves.

 

Damning and despising,

Every race.

 

Except one.

 

 

These people were the harness of my grief—

 

A plague driving me insane it’s true.

 

They spawned a blackness in my heart. A moth-eaten hole made bed there, gushing pearl sickles that hacked and hacked hacked. My soul was blemished, blemished. Arid with loathing, scalded layers peeling. Acrimony became a flame, melting empathy searing with a sting, sting, sting. I screamed for justice, wept before Mother Karma pleading for a blizzard of righteous wrath.

 


Revenge— that’s what I wanted.

 

 

I wished to make them endure everything I had.

 

Yes.

 

Needed them to know how it hurt, how it burned.

 

Yes.

 

I wanted them to burn.

 

 

 

Because imagine how it feels. 

 

 

 

Imagine how it feels to witness an ocean of corpses, corpses torched, piled one after the other one after the other one after the other on an image, a public image titled “My Saturday Night, but with —” (I can’t even bring myself to write the word. Why on earth would I want to write the word?…)

 

 

Imagine how it feels.

 

 

Imagine you, that it was you, they craved to set fire on that heap.

 

 

Picture it. 

 

 

Picture the naked skulls prancing around and chanting, breathing in a stench but to them it’s the aroma of decaying beast bodies, black black black bodies singed, no not humans, We’re not human.

 

To them We’re the wretch lower than the wretch, the abomination not even worthy to writhe among a carnival of shit insects.

 

 

To them we are the burden of White America.

 

 

The burden.

 

 

 A burden…

 

 

But I realized…

 

I realized…

My enmity outraged nobody but me.

 

 

 

Because they don’t care, those ones I detest.

 

 

They savor the taste of my tears.

 

Those ones, they don’t care.

 

They treasure my destruction.

 

 

 

So I’m letting go, I’m letting go. 

 

 

So I declare,

 

I declare,

I declare myself free.

 

 

From the heartbreak of present segregation,

From the weight of oppressed chains,

 

I declare myself free.

 

 

Never again shall I question—

Never again shall I wonder, why.

I say,

 No more!

 No more!

No more!

 

 

I say,

so do it.

 

 

 

Shave the brain.

 

Send that mark home, be the goddamn skinhead.

 

 

I won't feel a thing.

 

 

I say,

so go on.

 

 

Go ahead, wish me dead.

 

 

I am free.

I am free.

 

Even though I'll never forgive,

Even though I’ll never forget,

 

 

I promise this,

 

Promise this—

 

It will never consume me again.

 

 

So fine, hate me.

 

I'm done.