Between You and Me (2016)
"Between You and Me" was written and performed for the National Civil Rights Museum's slam poetry contest: Drop the Mic. The theme for the contest was "And justice for all."
Between You and Me (2016)
I looked up from the bar and found myself
staring back from the mirror behind the bottles.
Perfect, I’d come to do some reflecting, anyway,
to pin words to paper that could make my friends and family
take another look at themselves - to seek more mirrors than tv screens -
words to show how black names are treated like typos:
They sound weird, don’t fit, and warn us to be more careful.
That’s when you reached between you and me
And asked, What’s black and white and red all over?
American streets where black ink forms black words
into black names that we only learn once they’re red all over:
“Alton” - means “from the river,”
“Philando” - “love people.”
But what do I know of the distance between ancient translations
and that moment when two black mothers first whispered those names into black faces?
I’ve only read those names as black words on white paper that’s printed, paid for,
Liked, shared, followed, flicked past and trashed.
We recycle paper to save the planet,
but who stops us from throwing away millions of black words,
as if only the white part is worth saving while the black part bleeds?
American vocabulary teaches when one gets shot down,
there are dozens of others that look the same,
as if all black words look the same.
When I looked up from behind the bottles,
My reflection proved that my name had a body, and the distance
Between my body and reflection was as thick and untouchable
as my own blood and bone.
But the names I had written were shadows of men ripped from their black bodies,
names we can now read only as black words on tv screens,
names like Alton and Philando,
names deep as rivers,
names that loved people,
names like Freddie, Trayvon, Michael, and Tamir,
men who can never take another look at themselves in the mirror,
men who were confident that the distance between their bodies and reflections
was touchable as skin
and paper thin.