ESSAYS-ish
Excerpt from “The Architecture of Voice or The House that Solange Built”
We bourgie. Duvets of white linen. Mid-century wood: walnut and teak. White walls, Black art. Artifacts from our travels – hookahs and beaded dolls, crude instruments and such. A dining table for eight. Everyone gets a seat. Gets to eat. Praise Jesus who turned water to wine. My woman is fine. My cup runneth over. Sundays the dusty turntable comes alive with vinyl. Anita Baker. Luther Vandross. Aretha Franklin. Their voices paint the walls in pastels. I sing along with my hot pink voice. I am home. At home in my Blackness. My house the call; my voice the response.
Excerpt from “Da Hood VS Everybody (An Homage to Brooklyn Bodegas)”
A year later I watch them come up from the train. White and transparent as a glass of milk. The luggage-laden Airbnb’ers, with their pale skin, black socks, and white-white sneakers. They look lost at first — twirling themselves in circles, looking at the phone in their hand like it’s a compass. The blue-haired girl with thigh tats and a nose ring. The bald guy with a ratty knit cap, beard, and cut-off pants. They look hella comfortable bouncing down Rockaway Ave with their newly adopted pitbulls. They act like they grew up here: chilling on stoops with their coffee mugs and their New York Times, bleaching the block with their blatant sense of entitlement.
Excerpt from “thinking aloud & alone—after Baldwin”
i am thinking of white bodies as milk repositories as funhouse mirrors as slot machines as assault rifles as tiki torches. i am thinking of the men Baldwin loved, milk-white & blue-veined. i wonder if those white boys ever met his Black mama. i am thinking how Baldwin reconciled conflicts around race & gender. how he said “each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other—male in female, female in male, white in black and black in white.”