Counting Descent

by Clint Smith

they call me blue because they don’t understand how the sky work they call you black because they don’t understand how god work

It is the irony of a ship burning at sea, surrounded by the very thing that could save us.

Tell me, at what velocity does joy travel?

I wish I could give my breath to the boys who had theirs taken, but I’ve stopped counting because it feels like there are too many boys & not enough breath to go around.

i am trying to disentangle my name from my grandfather’s gun i am trying to pick it up off the carpet and place it back where it belongs

When I was younger I was ashamed of my mother for the heirloom of her cheeks, always wondering why she couldn’t just keep them to herself.

I don’t remember the last time police sirens didn’t feel like gasping for air.

But is anything built for what it ultimately becomes?

When did it learn it was to become a cage?

They want people to remember that they once existed beyond this place, that they still do.

imagine yourself a puddle existing as both transparency & filth. Something that won’t be there by the afternoon.

To deny the full humanity of others is to deny it within ourselves.

Because isn’t this the problem? That we must write the most exaggerated versions of ourselves to show them something they have already chosen not to see?

Our stars weren’t meant for their sky. We have never known the same horizon.

it i come from a city that is drowning while being told it is rinsing itself clean

How can we write about the soil and not talk about the blood? How can we write about the tree and not talk about the noose?

besides why waste time sculpting when I could make you pancakes in the morning

it would be nice to be something in a museum one day because that’s what I’ve been told means you’ve lived a meaningful life but I think instead I might like to be in a garden where even after I die the residue of me can help grow something more beautiful than I ever was

but sometimes routine feels nice because it is familiar and you are something I hope remains familiar for as long as I keep waking up each morning

I know I keep talking about forever but it’s hard when that’s all I see in the mornings when you kiss me

What is existence really if its definition is so ephemeral—if all that history can be snatched away?

for every year we are not destroyed do they not remind us what a miracle it is to have lasted this long?