KB Brookins
I'm not writing anything else where white people are the assumed audience
forget the references forget the review panel full of wonderbread who’ve written metaphors for my skin forget the handshake forget friends who only reference other wonderbread friends forget feeling bad for never finishing an episode of Friends forget the discourse & allyship forget wanting the revolution’s sides to be more diverse forget converting the 50sum percent of folk who still think they aren’t racist forget the 50sum percent of folk who still think they’re antiracist forget the nuance & sparing their feelings with every line & stanza forget “show, don’t tell” for niggas in single-file lines for their lynching forget their desire their presence their hate mistaken as healthy forget the unhealthy white girl berating me on the zoom call forget rage mistaken as hate forget Defund The Police Is Not Realistic forget Nancy Pelosi & the police forget the bombings & shootings & recanting all this shit so you can feel me less forget the stares forget ignorance assumed of the reader forget mistakes forget writing more like them / to them / with them / in spite of them forget white rage forget Black pain paraded as prose & poem I am writing what Booker T needed all of this time I am writing for Phyllis for Sonia for Audre for James I am writing a poem that I don’t need to explain Let minstrelsy take its rightful step inside the trash can Let the gaze of the white everything step away from my pages & my poems & my power Let them be a choir of stares Reader I am writing this poem for me—
Biography
|
KB is a black trans poet & object in the sky. follow them on twitter and instagram at @earthtokb.
|
