Punching the Air

by Ibi Zoboi

I look up It’s one of the white officers who stares down at me with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up He leans on the table His arms close to my face close enough for me to glance down at his tattoos and I stare and stare and I see what he wants me to see A black baby A black baby with a ropea rope around its neckaround its neck My eyes are glued to that tattoo I stare at the details, the lines on the rope the baby’s eyes closed, with tears coming down its cheeks Its skin made blacker against his pale arm It makes me want to scream There’s a stone in my throat There’s a brick on my chest The stone turns into a mountain in my throat The brick turns into a building on my chest There’s a rumbling in my bones So I get up and push the table away wanting that officer to get crushed under its weight or fly into the air and bang his whole body against a wall and die and die and die I don’t even know when it happens He grabs me, and in seconds four officers are on me pressing my head against the cold, hard floor a knee is on my throat my jaw, my face, my head are being crushedcrushed This country and city on my chest splits down the middle The already broken pieces shatter and crush until there is nothing but dust