Grief is Our Mother Tongue

Rest in power Marcellus Khaliifah Williams

The grief might sit familiarly on your tongue, you must remember it for next time.

How many more petitions and protests does one need to demand less blood?

How does one communicate to an oppressor whose only currency is violence?

Cry, if you will. The oppressor doesn’t give a shit how many tears we shed.

Innocent or guilty, they’ll kill you anyway.

They’ll lynch us in broad daylight and give us our tears as drinking water.

I think Marcellus Khaliifah Williams would embrace Sonya Massey like they had always known each other.

Perhaps they’d laugh with George Floyd because they’re finally experiencing freedom.

Do not fool yourself. I promise you they’ll do it again. They’ll find another innocent Black man to make an example of. Stay in line. Do not forget to put your head down. Your life depends on it.

Let’s continue to pretend like Black bodies aren’t the state’s favourite puppets. It’s all a show. How many Black people can we kill before anyone gives a shit?

How many dead Black bodies do we need to move us? How gruesome must their deaths be before we renounce the oppressor’s power over us?

I’m tired of digging graves with hands that beg for a joyful celebration: a wedding, well fed Black children, a graduation.

I wonder at what point after they take their last breathe do they become appropriate symbols.

A tweet, a hashtag, an instagram post or a notes app poem.

A symbol to be turned into art, but not powerful enough to be avenged.

To be Black  is to experience this grief across waters; I write about dead people I have never met but I have always known.

To be Black is to be divine. I can trace life on the lines in the palm of my hand and I recognise death in the saltiness of my tears.

Grief might be our mother tongue, but resistance is our favourite dialect.