How fresh and recent you are in my memory, dear heart, though I have not spoken of you in a lifetime or more and though I would not be writing on this page if there were a chance that you should read it.
Summer turns to autumn but the air is hot. The national conversation is a rhetorical nightmare, my countrymen on the island of Puerto Rico are devastated by storm and sea, and the Rohingya are dying in Burma. I have been spending nights accompanied by thoughts that sprawl formlessly over my bed and sink through the carpet and floorboards.
There is no woman for me now and I find this terribly comforting- without the constant worry of betrayal my life becomes more calm and controllable. I have not been drinking for some time and so I have not been trying to be a poet, either, which is no loss to poetry although it feels as loss to me. I am aware that the touch of man profanes and my own hand seems to have this effect with great speed, and so despite my lost and discarded relics I try to smile as I go through my days.
I have been thinking lately of the last time that I had guns pointed at me. It was a little over two years ago and one thing led to another and the police were suddenly inside my door pointing shotguns and rifles and pistols at me, which I found surprising at the time. I remember the rush of cold as my blood froze in my veins and I said “This is my house, don’t shoot me” and I was aware that I looked like a madman, shirtless in basketball shorts with sweat glistening on my shaved head and an axe by the bookshelf and so much brandy on my breath that even I could smell it, and although I had wanted to die or thought I did I suffered the supreme indignity- surrender to the threat of violence. Though I had committed no crime but madness I walked from my house with my hands over my head and once outside I kept my hands over my head until an ambulance arrived because the police had shot a handcuffed man in the back of a squad car earlier that year just a mile down the road from where I sat and I knew then as I have always known that if a policeman shoots me there will be no justice. They looked somewhat amused or embarrassed or ashamed when they asked why I still had my hands up and I told them I did not want them to kill me. They said they didn’t want to kill me, so I pointed out that they came into my home and pointed guns at me, and that is what people who want to kill people do. I do not know if they were prepared to concede the point but the ambulance arrived and when the paramedics’ boots hit the ground I knew I wasn’t going to die so I started crying and I do not remember too much after that except sleep.
The first question, and it really is the only question, is “would they have shot me if I was black?” My luxury is that I never have to know.
I shall do my best to never write to you again. I may write to you tomorrow.
Summer turns to autumn but the air is hot. The national conversation is a rhetorical nightmare, my countrymen on the island of Puerto Rico are devastated by storm and sea, and the Rohingya are dying in Burma. I have been spending nights accompanied by thoughts that sprawl formlessly over my bed and sink through the carpet and floorboards.
There is no woman for me now and I find this terribly comforting- without the constant worry of betrayal my life becomes more calm and controllable. I have not been drinking for some time and so I have not been trying to be a poet, either, which is no loss to poetry although it feels as loss to me. I am aware that the touch of man profanes and my own hand seems to have this effect with great speed, and so despite my lost and discarded relics I try to smile as I go through my days.
I have been thinking lately of the last time that I had guns pointed at me. It was a little over two years ago and one thing led to another and the police were suddenly inside my door pointing shotguns and rifles and pistols at me, which I found surprising at the time. I remember the rush of cold as my blood froze in my veins and I said “This is my house, don’t shoot me” and I was aware that I looked like a madman, shirtless in basketball shorts with sweat glistening on my shaved head and an axe by the bookshelf and so much brandy on my breath that even I could smell it, and although I had wanted to die or thought I did I suffered the supreme indignity- surrender to the threat of violence. Though I had committed no crime but madness I walked from my house with my hands over my head and once outside I kept my hands over my head until an ambulance arrived because the police had shot a handcuffed man in the back of a squad car earlier that year just a mile down the road from where I sat and I knew then as I have always known that if a policeman shoots me there will be no justice. They looked somewhat amused or embarrassed or ashamed when they asked why I still had my hands up and I told them I did not want them to kill me. They said they didn’t want to kill me, so I pointed out that they came into my home and pointed guns at me, and that is what people who want to kill people do. I do not know if they were prepared to concede the point but the ambulance arrived and when the paramedics’ boots hit the ground I knew I wasn’t going to die so I started crying and I do not remember too much after that except sleep.
The first question, and it really is the only question, is “would they have shot me if I was black?” My luxury is that I never have to know.
I shall do my best to never write to you again. I may write to you tomorrow.
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