The name of this poem is “Here”
The name of this poem is Haiti
The name of this poem is Palestine
The name of this poem is America
The name is Flint, Michigan
The name is China
The name is South Central
The name is Minnesotta
The name is Johannesburg
The name is Panama
The name is Belize
The name is Here

Here is a strategy
Here we can’t run away from we
Here needs new imagination
There’s nothing performative about Here
Here has no guestlist or RSVP
We are here whether we want to be or not
Since I been here I’ve been reminded that freedom is health now
Freedom is breathing now
Freedom is not hating your roommate
You know the simple shit
Like a good meal*

Here is the re-examination
The doing of the deep work of the unavoidable
An inventory of the soul
Here is An everyday choreography of the possible
Dwelling in the wounds
Dwelling in the wounds
The deconstruction of fiction of the stable
Here in messy entanglements of empathy and apathy
an assemblage of a fragmented people
Here

We water dancer of the mundane
We wake up
scribble scripture
scroll a lil bit
like a picture

sip a tincture
made a smoothie
watched a movie
and let the stillness really move me

we living life
through cell phone
accept cookies
before ourselves though
We laugh at meme’s but fear stuck to us like velcro

the world is so different
the veil has been lifted
this show is unscripted
but the camera’s are still rolling now
who’s hand are you holding now
Restless in the wreckage
We
unravel
undoing
entangled
unfolding
All in the open now

Here
we can see what your hairline REALLY look like
How much your mouth really do
Unlearning silence used as survival tactic
Here is a current event
Here theory takes place at home
This is what we are at play with
Imagining new playgrounds
Here we must move the people while staying put

The revolution will be collaborative
Here the urgency in which one must express themselves,
an urge
that one must remain artist even without an audience

*The threat we face is invisible
A virus can’t vote
Can’t enslave
The virus has no age
The virus has no borders
The virus is here
the virus is a mirror
The virus is racism
The virus is much like vibration
Although you can’t hold it you know it’s real
You know it’s here

When yourself threatens to smother you,
You will open your mouth
not to yell or to scream, but to find your way to song
Some way of breaking
Some way to upheaval
Some form of magic
Some form of music
Melanin filled resilience

Here We have to imagine what we are if we are not producing products
If given a break
Here we break
Here we sanctuary new forms of family kinships used as resistance
Here is a form of improvised connectedness
New framework in a place of isolation
solidarity is a weapon
A support immune system if you will
If you won’t that’s fine this work here is as necessary as much as it is invisible

*Here we chorus,
swarm
ensemble,
mutual aid society
Louder than the endless record of struggle on repeat ready to be sampled, and resampled and resampled over and over
meant to be passed on like generational mixtape
Here is soundtrack to a history that hurts

Here
we chorus
In concert
We blueprint
We work song
Collectively Calypso
Organized Orchestra
Techno spiritual
JuJu apparatus

We move here in stillness
The best musicians listen more than they play*
Here we Black noise finding a listening in one another
Today is what I have
Here is where I am
Today is where I am
Here is what I have

From Here
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Sighs filled w/ working from home
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Eyes look like levy’s
Hearts weigh glaciers
Hunger for touch
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
cerfuwed into confusion
Letting a smile peek through the uncertainty
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
Mouths miming I miss you’s through facemasks
Longing for a time not so long ago
Me and my mother hug from 10 ft away
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