I want to preface this by saying, this isn’t a dig at education.

It is though, a dig at the way people so eagerly noose themselves, their culture, their Blackness, for admission into the American dream.

And like any institution, they learn the language, the customs, the quiet code switch. No matter how much they try to convince us otherwise — gold toothed grad pictures, their hood adjacency tales — there’s a natural separation that happens.

You can feel the disconnect, the superiority complex, arrogance and emboldening that proximity to whiteness has provided.

There’s no escaping the distinctions in personhood etched into every cornerstone of society. After all, whiteness teaches us that subscription into their institutions provides access.

And in that, we have to acknowledge what America has always been to its core — a system of classes.

Never outright said, instead, it unmasks itself in subtleties. From boarding schools to first-class seat selections, our placement in this country is predestined.

I’ve spent the last few weeks, one viral post after another, unable to fully name the discomfort I felt around the dialogue surrounding Cheyenne Bryant.

Too much of the criticism has been rooted in maintaining status quo — a stance contradictory to the sell of relatability. How their opinions suddenly triumphed all, and led to the weaponization of education to garner respect.

Two things can be true at once, it’s honest and elitist. But — seems to be the general consensus amongst our bourgeois.

Is this not the time for the experts?

How is gatekeeping resources from an already marginalized group, to spite a few, going to combat anti-intellectualism — when it is the very distance itself that has carved them a lane.

These stances continuously show the prioritization of class solidarity over correction and diasporic responsibilities whenever the perception of intellect supersedes the presenting of the information.

As if, these accomplishments create anomaly and provide exemption from being casualties of a descending democracy.

But — the glamification of ignorance, coupled with the silences of our Talented Tenth, has shown itself quite the commodity for anyone gutsy enough to disengage with the respectabilities.

Which is a conversation I’ve had within my own circles.

I know someone with a J.D. that has been dead silent while civil rights are being relinquished. Another friend with a PhD in pharmaceuticals, has also opted for silence in a time where the CDC isn’t fully functioning.

Visibility can no longer be an afterthought to a people dying to be led. And in a world where nobody fact checks anything, you’re doing yourself, your community, your ancestors, a disservice by restricting your vocality to only reminding us of your hierarchy.

This is how we get the widespread likening of a Dr. Umar, an Iyanla Vanzant, and a Charlamagne. Or, how we get a Trump over Kamala, arguably one of the most qualified presidential candidates in history.

No matter how unconventional, people love conviction. For as long as mics are on sale, they’ll always be someone unlicensed, audacious and willing. Please understand, this isn’t a tussle over who’s most tasseled, it’s about who’s willing to die on their sword.

But, it never dawned on me that my choosing of privacy would be met with pushback while cultivating friendships. Or, why it had to. A couple weeks ago, I was out with an acquaintance, and mid-convo, I found myself over-explaining who I was. The more I let my guards down, the more I sensed judgment arising. As she put it—I hid things well. A luxury that didn’t afford me consideration or compassion. But, what she didn’t see in the hiding, was the perils of being Black and woman.

Which I thought was quite odd. I wouldn’t say the assumption itself is what bothered me, it’s what she used as a measuring stick for the bases of that assumption, that I didn’t particularly care for. Frankly, she didn’t know me well enough to spot a hiding. Still, she felt comfortable enough to assume and project.

She had mostly known me through instagram. In the stillness of my best frames. She hadn’t known me, Bri the poet, the dweller, the one who cried too much. The Bri who lost her mom at 11 and her dad, who couldn’t stomach the losing, shortly after. The one who had to learn her own company out of necessity. Out of survival.

The thing is, she met me in an in-between season. When she met me, I was 13-months into unemployment, mourning a five year relationship, depressed, confused, and sleep deprived. The aesthetic she assumed me to have was mania—I was a shell of myself. I wasn’t aiming to hide anything well, I was simply in hiding. I didn’t have the words to fully articulate the grief I felt.

I was embarrassed to not be myself. Embarrassed to not make the money I’ve always made. Embarrassed to not have support like I thought I would. I was hard on myself and learned to internalize things beyond my control. Ashamed and in search for community I found myself, yet again, having to prove my worth where I expected caretaking. Needless to say, I let the friendship fizzle out. I honestly didn’t have the capacity to explain every single thing about myself.

Society has convinced too many of us to measure the goodness of people based on online presence. By the thing most performed. It also doesn’t help that outreach isn’t being extended beyond social media. Leading people to speculate on the character of people despite our yearning for deeper, lasting connections.

More than anything, I was tired. Tired of bearing the expectation of shapeshifting in every room, even at my lowest. How we can be too angry, too strong, too vocal, and too emotional, all at once. While also not having the proper systems in place to make unraveling, in any way, possible. Or safe. Because on the other side of hiding it well was me never being asked about my well-being.

-Bri.

Prose poetry is writing that combines the paragraph format of prose with the concentrated language, imagery, and emotional intensity of poetry. Unlike traditional poetry, prose poems don’t use line breaks to create rhythm and meaning. Instead, they rely on the natural flow of sentences while maintaining the heightened language, compression, and metaphorical density characteristic of poetry.

Karen Lozinski, Louisiana, 2021

We owe ourselves a celebration separate and apart from our abusers. Every victim does, this ain’t much different. But here—see here, everything is about the dollar, even the honoring. Even the grief has a price to pay. Every February, it, too, takes its toll. And the closest thing we get to an acre is 28-days of crafted capitalism masked as celebration. Black History Month shirts hang from racks like nooses in stores that still deem us unfit. Unworthy. A gentle reminding of genocide. The way history bends to the dollar like a question. I wonder, who named them gods and judges and jurors? And klans and murderers. Who named them patriots and politicians and capitalists? Capable. And honest? The way history gets fucked for the dollar. Why they be talking about segregation like it’s a distant memory? That’s literally somebody’s grandma. That’s literally somebody. We pay the price twice over. And twice more. And then too many times to count. The freedom is a facade. A fallacy. A Ferris wheel of illusions—a subscription. A month paid. A couple days short. An asking draped in choice. So, I reckon, why not May? And June too—since we’re asking and willfully waiting. Who made their words law? Exact. Something to be regarded. Who picked them their days and named them gods and men and free? And sayer. Who dated their grief and named their stories 28-days enough?

Rory Doyle, Mississippi, 2017

A dove is released in New Orleans’ Congo Square to commemorate the millions of Africans who suffered the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The annual event normally takes place during the July 4 weekend. Vincent Simmons, Louisiana, 2019

A playlist rooted in liberation that tells a truer version of the Black American experience, while also speaking to our longing for spiritual cleansing. 🎧

R&B isn’t a pit, it’s not a thing to fall into
it’s an assignment at birth

r&b is rhythm and blues
and soul
and funk,
it’s why we dance like that at weddings.
it’s what we remember about Nina
and Whitney
and Luther.
it’s what they named us for being too good.
r&b is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,
it’s Love Jones
and Brown Sugar.
it’s the 99cent spent on a ringtone—
r&b is a calling,
it’s what I answer to.
it’s a gospel,
and a sermon
and a scripture

it’s the choir.
it’s why church ran over.
it’s why we cry like that at funerals,
it’s why the Caged Bird Sings—
it’s a reminder to freedom.

r&b is sacred practice,
it’s the voice of an ancestor survived.

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*all the R&B songs you missed*

“Your love is too thick”, to which she replied, “love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”

You know that feeling you feel, for the first time, when you realize—you and your lover don’t love the same thick? That our unconditionals slept in different rooms and sat at opposite ends of a table. That we didn’t move with the same rhythm and on most days we moved with none all.

I was twelve the first time that I experienced grief. It was then that I realized—grief is the result of a love removed. Or one imagined.

Something else to shape and search for in lovers. Feelings I didn’t yet have words to name. Yet, the heaviness would be all I felt and wore, like a second skin or coat. Much like a thin lover, I never knew I wasn’t being loved wholly, until I wasn’t.

Never knew I missed myself until I grieved who I was. How I walked on shells until I become one. Thin lovers have a way of sculpting you different. Only to bitter themselves at what they’ve created.

It’s almost like they needed something to blame. How I learned my love was always too much of everything. A burden especially. How they never knew their love, too, was a burden. How my heaviness prepared me to carry what they simply wouldn’t.

How I spent many days in search for something, my lover mostly. Who I saw in everything, even things she refused to see.

Some people only count relationships by the days good—not the safety. It’s like they never knew they walked light; but loved making homes of darkness. And so, we existed in a glass house upon a seesaw. I learned to became whatever was necessary for the sake of keeping.

It amazes me how something so fragile could make a scarcity out of things. Made me more possessive. More tolerant until unrecognizable was all I was.

That’s why I never want to be loved more than what’s necessary, and in turn, not love a person to ruins. I rather be a steady lover. One that doesn’t swallow anything whole. One that knows slenderness and thickness tether the same lines. And that love doesn’t sway between two contradictory things.

Love is a container. A game of chess that ends in a draw. It’s us moving to a hymn that only we know. A rhythmical sway. It’s the lover I could’ve been had I seen a little light.

-Bri P.

finally understanding how some things lost
are never found
Or—how some flowers bloom
only to be torn from roots
to die comfortably in the palms
of people that once admired their parts

1

these hands have lived many lives,
a vessel for the disconnect
between my heart and dialect;
I don’t always say what I mean.
but I’ve planted things—
flowers, hopes and dreams.
all the things
requiring love indeed.

2

almost a haiku

that’s where I went wrong
watering your plants, as if—
they were my own

3

sunflowers turning into
autumn leaves,
you often leave
recanting on everything
you once offered me.
we do this all the time,
pardon me.
Acting as if
we can conquer
the unforeseen.

4

Flower Child, a note to self

you’ve grown from mud
flourished in the midst of failures
made miracles of misery
felt warmth between concretes
conquered lions
danced with God’s
gave soul to life
bloomed in defeat

5

While listening to What’s Going On, originally released in 1971, I journaled the emotions that came to me over Inner City Blues. These five poems stand to represent the many nuances that live underneath the guise of blueness.

blue¹

/blo͞o/ adjective

1. of a color intermediate between green and violet, as of the sky or sea on a sunny day

INFORMAL

2. (of a person or mood) melancholy, sad, or depressed.

Blue
I see you
in my dreams
and in everything
especially,
the in-betweens
in the same way
that god sees
d i v i n e
but not without fault
in color
and incomplete
how seasons change
and moments freeze
the way suns and oceans meet

1

subtle reminders of the wonders of life
and of what childhood was like,
the happiness
the freedom that came with ignorance
and easy bake ovens
the way we dove into pools
and went way too deep
without fearing the bottom
Or—feeling the need to breathe,
suffocation wasn’t the end;
it was once the birth of a person
a becoming

2

you give me blues
and to think we feared the police
how is this any different
why is our genocide excusable
as if, me and you
weren’t living proof
that words are bullets too

3

Nights in the city.

I love car rides
racing against
midnight moons
reminiscing like
timing didn’t exist
daydreaming like
days never ended
ego trips,
trips that go nowhere
grooving to old tunes
hoping to finally find you
or feel you, like
rhythm and blues

we connect from afar

far from perfect
and far from the surface

4

midnight blues
on my loneliest nights
I laid by your side
to feel closer to God

5

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