what I do, say, imagine,
we are black, capital B, lowercase b,
another name for a nigga
which means: not to be
that when a person doesn’t see a body–
flesh stirs; spirit is exchanged on the market
in a Shakespearean fourth act staring hell’s devils
over them salty Atlantic waters waves green like dollar
Bills with dead men’s posing on the front crashing against
the shore as a ching-a-ling ring for every star
that hasn’t fallen, proof the world is a plantation
there will always be a first black from king’s dream to lead us out the hull though we already landed. because if i were not here my country would make me from scratch: bones thin,
mud skin, hair so tight it don’t blow in the wind
a delectable delight for all to hate, the sweet taste of modernity.
first, comes the first black, who used to be a slave?
in fact, isn’t that the second black, secondly negro,
then the third version:
pro-black, joy black, magic black, afro-black
which means: take what is given
i do laugh more when i’m wrong than right, love my friends when
death skips me over, i have a heart that beats throughout the day into the night. the mundane yields little to the debt
assigned to an object trying to say:
What is enough?
when lack sits in the corner letting air out while being filled
when i talk it always ruins the picture within the frame
no matter the color of the blue sky, the green of the itchy blades
of grass, the pink of your tongue matching the inside of me
between the way we find to be fine is always fleeting from black to white, only gray in the moment never after.
what is left, i write as truth but understand it to be a lie;
haven’t you heard, we free? they said we can be whatever we like.
Christian M. Ivey (he/they), is a black nonbinary trans writer, editor, and art director from Pontiac, Michigan. their work interrogates the mundane to illuminate how blackness is overdetermined by social death via kinships. Christian had edited issue NO. 28 themed on Belonging of FIYAH Literary Magazine and the forthcoming HEXAGON SF MYRIAD Zine themed on Kinship. Christian is also, the Art Director for FIYAH Literary Magazine, Associate Editor at Tenebrous Press’ Skull & Laurel, and the Digital Communications Specialist at the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley.