They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

by Hanif Abdurraqib

The truth is, if we don’t write our own stories, there is someone else waiting to do it for us.

Dearly beloved, I will walk into the next storm and leave my umbrella hanging on the door. Please join me.

Nothing is more punk rock than surviving in a hungry sea of white noise.

It’s in the spirit of male loneliness to imagine that someone has to suffer for it.

I am sad yesterday, and I might be sad tomorrow, and even the day after. But I will be here, looking for a way out, every time.

& it turns out that I want all pictures of me loving my people to be in color. I want the sunlight whistling its way across our faces to be always amber & never an absent hue that might mistake our lineage for something safe. I am talking of artifacts again & not of how I cup my hands to the chins of those I love & kiss them on their faces & this type of love will surely be the death of us all. this type of love will shake the angels loose & send them running to their horns.