xandria phillips writes :
social death an address
I write to you from the predicament of Blackness.You see, I’ve been here all my life and found,on the atomic level, it’s impossible to walk throughmost doorways. I can, however, move throughwalls. I write to you from the empty seat that isn’tempty. I write to you when a feel is copped.I write myself out of bed. I write to you as the spookwho sat by the door. I write to you from OliviaPope’s apolitical mouth. I am here because I couldnever get the hang of body death, though it has beenpresented to me like one would offer a roofied cocktailor high-interest loan. I am only here because I startedeating again. I am only here because I am ineligibleto exist otherwise. I’m only here because I left andreturned through an Atlantic wormhole. I write to you asthe American version of me. In the American version,Orpheus’ lyre is a gun. Eurydice thinks of doctors,or, rather a cold hand. It feels like one is sliding its sterilenails over the curtains of her womb. Once, a healer’s handspassed through my flesh, and I went on trial for stealingten fingers. When my spoon scrapes the bottom of a bowlit sounds like a choir of siblings naming stars after their favoritemeals. Physicists are classifying new matters and energiesevery day. Dark matter, Black flesh are in high demand,and we never see a penny. I urge you. If you see a sisterwalk through walls or survive the un-survivable, sip yourdrink and learn to forget or love the taxed apparition before you.