Post-Traumatic

by Chantal V. Johnson

Vivian noted to herself that the victims of the Atlanta child murders had all been Black, according to the Wikipedia page, which she had surreptitiously looked at while Ally was talking. Ally was white, which meant her neurosis was mistaken, a version of unnecessary suffering that made Vivian laugh, thinking of it as a kind of psychological reparations, she wrote in her Notes app,

Gradually this confidence led to a sudden determination: She would end her relationship with her family once and for all. It was taking them too long to die.

WOWZERSS😭😭

Remember my joke, that bit I do about never being able to trust light-skinned girls due to various betrayals from childhood, and how you were the exception to that rule? Well, now I’m not so sure. Could you be on the run from your own Blackness? I wonder, too, about the work you’ve been doing. Altruism doesn’t square with your personality. It’s as if you’re atoning for your own selfishness, a reaction formation.