Run
Running for
fitness, medals, cures, the mirror
mayor, work, food, freedom
your life, the bus, the train—to get away—to jump in front of
Run!
Running from
the rain, the creep on the train
German Shepherd police dogs
Darren Wilson
Michael Brown-killer cops
Crips
Proud Boy/Oath Keeper
xenophobic vigilantes
pardoned out of prison
coming for you next as
ICE, IDF, USA!, USA!
Running from over 10,000 bullets, and 2 bombs dropped by Philadelphia police to destroy 61 Cobbs Creek Black families’ houses and kill 11 Black people May 13, 1985, the day after Mother’s Day.
“Let the fire burn” commanded Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor in this “City of Brotherly Love” reminiscent of the week of May 13, 1838, when Mayor John Swift wished thousands of “well-meaning” white terrorists “a hearty good night” as they burned the newly opened abolitionist Pennsylvania Hall, and the white fire brigade refused to spray water on the flames “letting the fire burn” the building to ashes.
Run!
Running for over a century from
“The City of Southern Charm,” Marianna, Florida, at the Dozier Reform School for Torturing Black Boys whipped to death after being raped in the aptly named White House
Generations of young Black bodies buried in the backyard prison yard
Apartheid alive in the front yard shattering runaways’ legs and dreams of escaping racist traps
Running from
St Mary, St Anne, St Paul, Carlisle, Holy Rosary Mission
North American white Christian supremacist schools for abducting, colonizing, and killing indigenous children assigned white-washed names, beaten by nuns raped by priests dumped dead in pits
holy cross holocaust
Fear god
Run!
Tripping on grief yanking you down through layers of red brown rocky dirt compacted by yellow Caterpillar bulldozer tank treadmill wheels
How are you climbing back up
from under the weight of
mass grave bodies
shrivelled faces looking at you
for dignity that died
before this genocide?
Didn’t get
compassionate memorials with
lily white carnation wreathes
iridescent ivory pearl
polyester silk lace-lined
polished lacquered
mahogany caskets
Names weren’t
delicately painted by calligraphers in gold script on coffin lids
reverently praised in newspaper headlines and commemorative postcards with flattering photographic portraits
chiselled into golden French Vanilla limestone above the grand entrances of university libraries
sung as hero hymnals by
spirited choirs
chanted angrily by righteous street protestors
but were whispered in grief/disbelief at night through mournful sobs by crushed lovers and mothers
Those boxes would’ve been the most luxurious rides of their lives. The living would be paying for them still with interest in loss.
You’ll be next. You betterRun!
Running from rapists
your childhood Baptist Catholic priest the rapist
your boyfriend the rapist
your father the rapist
the orphaned trick who pleaded
“Rape me, daddy” and
“Don’t leave me.
Don’t leave me.”
Running from
the orphaned trick
who was not magical in
overcoming his damage
too real, too familiar
stupid, slut, bitch worthless, words devaluing defining you
saved as currency
“Don’t leave me.”
Cherish any loyalty
Running from
trust-turned-terror
secrets: memories slicing with tears crusting in stigma scars
frightened sissy embarrassment
cruel teasing lethal harassment
leaping in truth from windows
before being pushed out of them
Running in Newark
from killer Richard McCullough who’s out of prison 15 years after fatally stabbing 15 year-old
Black lesbian, Sakia Gunn,
3 months before Amiri Baraka’s lesbian daughter, Shani Baraka, and her partner, Rayshon Holmes, were shot to death
in Piscataway
Running from
the mirror—don’t look
confirming how ugly
you think you are—know you are
revealing how no one wants you,
especially you.
Who will love you?
Run!
Running to
the bar for lonely unhappy hours with half-priced salty margaritas and full-rage fights
less expensive/effective than real therapy confrontations
Running to
your weed man
your arms, your babe
baby formula
your missing baby
baby teeth
baby bones in concrete dust
Gaza graveyard homes everywhere
Drone-dropped grenades
tearing off your legs with
state-weaponized Judaism
faster than the shit running down your legs
You’ve run out of anything to drink but glistening diamond sand vanishing from your hands
gone so fast like your grip on life
hold onto any hope
already a vapor
Run!
Running out of
warmth on another snowy Valentine’s night sleeping in the filthy piss-poisoned 2nd Ave F train station with rats and rigor mortis because upstairs, the Bowery shelter was full and the Bowery Hotel had empty rooms starting at $800 nightly—its own vulgarity mocking your misery
Chocolate hearts are less valuable and more vulnerable tomorrow beyond Walgreens sales clearing shelves for Jesus Christ Easter bunnies yellow sugar-sandpaper marshmallow rabbit Peeps
Appraise the lore
(Walgreens needs that cash to pay $6 billion fines for their reckless OxyContin dealing.)
Enough of pink and red hard conversation heart candies with their red words printed so blurry they read like drunken mumbles:
You’re the one
Be mine
Game over
Running low
white blood cells
red blood cells
T cells
anything to sell
bone density
thyroid support hormones:
T3, T4, T (testosterone)
estrogen, serotonin, iron
insulin, any sustenance
—you can’t afford it
Ran out of
rent money
borrowed/stolen
Netflix passwords
Newports
snipes
Fireball cinnamon whiskey minis
Georgi vodka half-pints
methadone spitbacks without fenty Tina psychosis
tolerance for insufferably
needy white peoples’ nonsense while sober
Fuck out my face with your
fake privilege
Ran out of
Biktarvy, Fortamet, Lipitor, Ventolin, Xanax, Zestril, Zoloft
no longer paid for by twice-the-price Medicaid
civility, civil rights
Colgate smiles
Instagram likes
hair, Just for Men hair color
restoration that will burn your scalp and face worse than any grey hair humiliation
Maybelline Instant Age Rewind—once was enough but you’ve got repetition compulsion
Covergirl Simply Ageless foundation
nothing can cover and hold you up
Getting older every minute
Each line in this poem a wrinkle,
an epitaph:
“He ran out of belief that anything good could happen again in his life”
Run!
Run down by
your lover the rapist
the mirror: turn to stone.
You’re no Medusa with the last laugh eternal
insecurity your only strength
Run down by
the bus
the white armored “Correction” school bus to Rikers Island jail
—you’re the driver
You tried to run, but got caught in the side-eye mirror
Don’t fight back and break it, earning seven-year bad luck mandatory felony assault prison time that won’t run out
—too much time for reflection
Run!
But you won’t get caught.
Your stamina is strong from
running so long.
Run to the mirror to see the
shining splendor of victorious gold medals decorating your chest
Feel powerful to believe
something good
can happen again in your life
Run!
