Call Us What We Carry

by Amanda Gorman

* Poke the scar until it speaks. This is how every memory starts. We droop our head in two, Into an echo struck long before.

Storytelling is the way that unarticulated memory becomes art, becomes artifact, becomes fact, becomes felt again, becomes free.

There is nothing so agonizing, or so dangerous, as memory unexpressed, unexplored, unexplained & unexploded. Grief is the grenade that always goes off.

What is writing but the preservation of ghosts?

Meaning we seek Ghosts for their memory & fear them for it just the same.

To tell the truth, then, is to risk being remembered by its fiction.

It’s said that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is this: a vine that sneaks up a tree, killing not by poison, but by blocking out its light.

Heritage is passed not in direct recollection but through indirect retelling. Those who follow will not remember this hour, but this hour will surely follow them.

Sometimes, we must call our monster out from under the bed to see he/she/it carries our face.

Some will hate our words because they burst from a face like ours.

The oppressor will always say the oppressed want their overcrowded cage, cozy & comforting as it is; the master will claim that the slaves’ chains were un-derstood, good, all right, okay—that is to say, not chains at all. A racial insult renders us a mammal, albeit less free. In short, a slur is a sound that beasts us.

Courage must cost us something, or else it is worth nothing at all.

At times even blessings will bleed us.

Fire barrel of the throat. Words, too, are a type of combat, for we always become what we refuse to say.

Writing, truth-telling to one another, is an act of hope-making when hope is hardest found. What place have we in our histories except the present.

That is to say, through some fictions we find fact; in some fantasies we discover ourselves & then some. Even without living it, a memory can live on in us. The past is never gone, just not yet found.

Grief, like glass, can be both a mirror & a window, enabling us to look both in & out, then & now & how. In

Where we are is no less Than where we’ve come from. To be haunted is to be hunted By a history that is still hurting, Needing healing as much as we do.

Never forget that to be alone Has always been a price for some & a privilege for others.

We always ask questions of those who came before. To be surveyed, then, is to have survived.

How we are moved says everything About what we are to each other.

Why it’s so perturbing for privileged groups to follow restrictions of place & personhood. Doing so means for once wearing the chains their power has shackled on the rest of us.

Some were asked to walk a fraction / of our exclusion for a year & it almost destroyed all they thought they were. Yet here we are. Still walking, still kept.

To be kept to the edges of existence is the inheritance of the marginalized.

Non-being, i.e., distance from society—social distance—is the very heritage of the oppressed. Which means to the oppressor...

Fundamentally, supremacism means doing anything to keep one’s sole conceit, Even if it means losing one’s soul.

Art, if fact, Is both a method & a finding, An answer in the inquiry. It is what is found & the manner in which it is discovered.

Simply put, the rise & fall matter, Conjoined, not canceling, Expansion, not erasure.

But to be disturbed is to be moved, Pushed toward progress. Our disgust is a measurement Of distance, a distaste for what was.

Meaning, we cannot stand up to police If we cannot cease policing our imagination,

So when you’re told that your rage is reactionary, Remind yourself that rage is our right. It teaches us it is time to fight. In the face of injustice, Not only is anger natural, but necessary, Because it helps carry us to our destination.

Our goal is never revenge, just restoration. Not dominance, just dignity. Not fear, just freedom. Just justice.

When our fire can no longer be fueled by fury, We will always be fortified by this faith,

We owe it to the fallen to fight, But we owe it to ourselves to never stay kneeling When the day calls us to stand.

We have battled hard to be. Nothing— & we mean nothing— Can keep you safe. Silence least of all.

Would we crave peace If we knew what it was. * * * Our war has changed. Whoever said we never die In our dreams obviously Has never been Black.

To ask a question Is to put our hand up & ready ourselves for the end. An answer is an assault, It can knock you dead.

Disbelief is a luxury We never possessed, A pause that never was.

Children have been taught— America: without her, democracy fails. But the truth is: America without her democracy fails.

There is more than one hue of haunting.

There is no love for or in this world That doesn’t feel both bright & unbearable, Uncarriable.

Grief depends on love. What we cherish most shall leave. But what we’ve changed can last, Chartered & chosen.

So, on this meaningful morn, we mourn & we mend. Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.

We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof, For it is in loss that we truly learn to love.

For it’s our grief that gives us our gratitude, Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it. So ensure that this ache wasn’t endured in vain: Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.

The only way to correctly predict The future is to pave it, Is to brave it. The breakage is where we begin. The rupture is for remembering.

The making of plans, When this is over, The We can’t wait, Really our knuckles rapping Against the future, sounding Out what lies beneath its hull.

Remember that fate isn’t fought Against. It is fought for. Again & again.

Maybe there is no fresh wisdom, Just old woes, New words to name them by & the will to act.

Change is made of choices, & choices are made of character.