Jason Reynolds's Blog, page 5

Day 20 of 30

ON STARBUCKS ET AL

just because there are options

for skinny and whip or no

whip and iced and blended

and added vanilla

sweetener and foam and no

foam and light ice and

extra hot and small as tall

and medium as big and large

as for some reason

an italian word

for flare maybe

venti

eventually

we’ll have to address the fact

the coffee is always burnt

and you’ve always gotten my

name wrong

Day 19 of 30

UNTITLED

i’ve been whispered to

told secrets by brown girls who

grit teeth as greeting

who split open at night

and sew shut in day and

wish they were seen and

wish they weren’t seen

and wish they weren’t

seen as chasms as canyons

to be walked through and

explored with steel toe

and pick axe surveyed by

an adventurer’s eye a conquerer’s

boot and dirty nail

on the foothold and grip of

i’ve been whispered to

told desires of being more

than halved mountain

and chipped stone

and erosion and drought and

flood and seismic

shift and quake and bolt

being more than mishap

missed or misses target

practice for phallus

fashioned as god

and i call my mother

ask her if i can confide in her with

the secrets i’ve been told if i can

lay my broken rules upon her breast

this rock of my family

this rock of mine

and all she says is to remember

to knock the dust off my hands

before i come to her table

Day 18 of 30

TO CHILD (a reminder)

i only want to tell you

i only need to assure

whatever they say you are

whoever they say you are

you are not that who and far

from that what

you are more

Day 17 of 30

APRIL 17, 1942, JACKIE ROBINSON GETS HIS FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE HIT AND WE STILL US

if you ever stood at the plate

looked out at the mound and saw fang and

the future burned bodies of the first

favorite passtime and a pastlife on

a painful pasture and a pastor telling you

of your birthright of burden

if you knew he was having a ball spitting

your way and had a ball was going low and

going high and to the right whispering

nigger in your ear as it whizzed past

your head better duck better duck better

batter batter bitter change up but you

know it ain’t no change up at all

if you could see the curveball coming

before you got to the game before they

gave you a number and a position before

they trusted you with a bat

and if you ever took a bunt when a home run

was easy but you knew a home run could

easily mean a hard run home

Day 16 of 30

US

i dont know

what else to look

for in a poem

besides eyes

and use

them

Day 15 of 30

ON POOR WHITE PEOPLE

there are moments i think about them

mostly i don’t but sometimes i do

think about when i was called boot bottom

by the creased upper and the scuffed heel

and the lace untaped untied a frayed

tentacle of thread loose and lackluster

there are moments i think about them

mostly i don’t but sometimes i do

think about how at some point we were all

cobbled together but it was me who was

called threadbare and flimsy bound to melt

on hot tar thin out from journey

there are moments i think about them

talking to me like they fedora feather

like they pocket square and windsor

like they tab and pleat break and crease

like we ain’t all down here as essential

outcasts from the onset completing this outfit

this purple pimp suit

like we ain’t all down here squeaking

and breaking and wearing and tearing

making sure the bare feet of america

never knows the intimate feeling of marching

on the fingers of the world aflame

Day 14 of 30

A CHALLENGED LOVE

(for Mark Pollock, who I saw speak with his partner at TED, 2018)

today i listened to a blind man

and his wife talk about the day

he became a blind paralyzed man

and how the double down dug them

into a deep hole neither of them

had packed boots for how she had

just taught him to dance in the

dark how to move and step and

listen to a body that would break

in half and still and would deny

him hip sway and gyrate and jig and

swing and touch of torso and dip and

darling you’ve never had to see me

to see me she said but darling this

is not what you signed up for he said

his wheelchair too cumbersome to cha-cha

and samba but perfect for somber saturdays

where she begs him to forgive his legs

for their miscommunication and his eyes

for their obsession with obsidian

she reminds him that his mouth can

still taste what’s too stubborn to leave

can still say what’s too singular to change

Day 13 of 30

FLIGHT or WHEN DID EVERYONE ELSE STOP DREAMING? 

to write a poem

thirty thousand feet

in the air

is to write a poem

as a poet

Day 12 of 30

ON ARTISTS

with all the noise the clap and scream

the pomp and circumstance of each day

the exhibition of naked dream

on pedestals built from thin mâché

with all the cheer and accolade

the crown and gown and hail as chief

just know that all the beauty made

was done with shaky disbelief

Day 11 of 30

SLEEPY

(Almost missed this one! Ahahaha! It’s been a day.)

i just want to sleep

i just want to slip

away from awake for

a while for

a hole to be filled

full of what was left

behind since this morning

sense this moment coming

on like a heaven

on a timer

sense this moment coming on

like heaven on time