Don't Call Us Dead Quotes

“...paradise is a world where everything
is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun...”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“who knew my haven
would be my coffin?

dead is the safest i've ever been.
i've never been so alive.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“some of us are killed in pieces, some of us all at once // do i think someone created AIDS? maybe. i don’t doubt that anything is possible in a place where you can burn a body with less outrage than a flag”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“i’ll plant a garden on top where your hurt stopped.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“Dear badge number.


What did I do wrong? be born? be black? meet you?”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“prediction: the cop will walk free
prediction: the boy will still be dead”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“i've left in search of a new God. i do not trust the God you have given us. my grandmother's hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-fat summer swallows another child who used to sing in the choir. take you God back. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“i spent my life arguing how i mattered until it didn’t matter.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“little black boy on the bus with his toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“history is what it is. it knows what it did. bad dog. bad blood. bad day to be a boy”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“they've made you a boy
i don't know

replaced my friend
with a hashtag.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“i spent my life arguing how i mattered until it didn’t matter. who knew my haven would be my coffin? dead is the safest i’ve ever been. i’ve never been so alive.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“it's not a death sentence anymore
it's not death anymore
it's more
it's a sentence
a sentence”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“& she looks back with eyes that say they said I was a princess, that I'd come to see you but you assumed flowers when I prefer a bouquet of swords.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“i am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & i just don't see race. neither did the poplar tree.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“dear badge number

what did i do wrong? be born? be black? meet you?”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“i was his secret until i wasn’t
alive until not. outside our closet

i found a garden. he would love it
here. he could love me here.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“no color to call white.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“desire was warm recently

shot from inside a body
into a body, strange

little birth, happy death
ritual, sweet lord

i've seen thy wrath
& it taste like sugar

lay thy merciful hand
around my neck”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“one day, the boy with a
difficult name laid with a
boy who shall remain
nameless in the sun & they
rolled a round waiting for
something to burn. the next
day, the boy with the
difficult name woke up in a
blue sweat, walked the rim
of the lake & though nothing
burned, something was
growing from the ashes, for
mosquitos flew away from
his skin, ticks latched onto
his ankle & turned to smoke,
weeds & willows bowed
green spines to him & he
swore he heard the dirt
singing his name

saying it right”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“I spent my life arguing how I mattered until it didn't matter”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“was he the rain & you the ark, kid?
did he make a new sea to miss you, kid?
were you the fish swimming in his grief, kid? did you float?”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“do i think someone created AIDS? maybe. i don’t doubt that anything is possible in a place where you can burn a body with less outrage than a flag”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“& then one woman, skin dark as all of us walks to the water’s lip, shouts Emmett, spits &, surely, a boy begins crawling his way to shore”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“take your God back. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent. i want the fate of Lazarus for Renisha, want Chucky, Bo, Meech, Trayvon, Sean & Jonylah risen three days after their entombing, their ghost re-gifted flesh & blood, their flesh & blood re-gifted their children.

‘dear white america”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“let ruin end here

let him find honey
where there was once a slaughter

let him enter the lion's cage
& find a field of lilacs

let this be the healing
& if not let it be”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead

“but here, not earth not heaven, we can’t recall our white shirts turned ruby gowns. here, there’s no language for officer or law, no color to call white. if snow fell, it’d fall black. please, don’t call us dead, call us alive someplace better. we say our own names when we pray. we go out for sweets & come back.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“dear ghost i made i was raised with a healthy fear of the dark. i turned the light bright, but you just kept being born, kept coming for me, kept being so dark, i got sca … i was doing my job.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“don’t fret, we don’t die. they can’t kill the boy on your shirt again.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

“think: once, a white girl was kidnapped & that's the Trojan War. later, up the block, Troy got shot & that was Tuesday. are we not worthy of a city of ash? of 1,000 ships launched because we are missed? i demand a war to bring the dead child back. i at least demand a song. a head.”
― Danez Smith, Don't Call Us Dead