[weshallovercome] like our breath ground down to vapor
henry 7. reneau, jr.
. the world grudgingly conforms to the shape we coerce upon it
. a burgeoned cell pushing out against its walls , taut against its
borders , not swollen but filling , tumoring towards blossoming
. our lives , our stories , this hour inside another groping from
the dark . the human body as meta-/phor an extension of earth
, and every death a passing translation into the toxic landscape
. start with the grate of incessant discourse within the nation
. every question answered with a question without an answer
, like an irritating leak without a bucket . a space where the
past festered and exhaled deflated decibels of denial rewritten
. the present blurred to almost ghost . a poltergeist rummaging
through the constituency of apathy . start with the stories , the
urgent voices , and distorted images that are denied , untold
, rewritten and unseen in the wider understanding of survival
in amerikkka , where what has supposedly ended , continues to
bleed through and disrupt the present moment . what pacifying
word in the English language can adequately convey the depth
of monumental loss after centuries of atrocity ? a collective
malaise of hands folded into the origami frame of indifference
, the excuses and justifications like weeds sprouting through the
concrete cracks . the ‘sivilized lines and grids and conscience
in retreat to echo chambers of isolated dread , despair , and
anger , that does not roar like rage restrained , but hack-/sawing
through our bodies , a sustained howl embittered by remorse
and shame . every transgression shares a fence with a neighbor
who smiles and waters his lawn . an optimism exhaled , hope-
ful into the now they never listen to . start with the past tense
of you can’t live there , in the hell no !! of never happiness
, no joy , only meanness , again and again , dressed in different
, new uniforms softening the horrors with cloned compliance
. a dysfluency of contempt and the silence is oh ! so deafening
, polished and moonstone old as a habitual choreography
of accommodation . the way it’s always been , that shouldn’t
exist anymore , is the lethargy where rage (the flame that
curls from wood , and a suffocation of smoke in toxic pursuit)
will not dignify silence always braced for impact , waiting
for the other shoe to drop , and the rotten core of the nation
pontificating plastic smiles and genuflecting before the tortured
body of hope . the awakened death of everything is first being
ripped from the womb . start with the hivemind of smartphones
, goggle algorithms , and social media threads . the digital and
artificial miasma created by influencers , cloned guest experts
, and the parroted 15-minute news cycle , every hour , on the
hour . there is always someone behind the wheel . as ominous
as a w[h]it[e]ness—the lies , as cliché as every false platitude
wrapped up in condescension ; says , we are an equal
opportunity employer ; says , we welcome BIPOC , LGBTQ+
and non-binary tangents of gendered expression ; says , we live
on Sioux , Apache , Crow , and Comanche land . speaks
a premeditated kind of platitudinal verbal litter . is God’s word
been weaponized against us as a means of indoctrinating us
into our own subjugation . start with a clutter of junk mail , and
deceitful telemarketers who proliferate when your credit score
reaches 800 , and everybody and they mama want to give you
something , for free !? and you , the potential for everything
possibly good , to be anything better than it is right now . but
your frustration and despair , like love that has nowhere to go
, and you , left (i know you hurting because you like it like this)
to incorporate loss into a new narrative optic , a suitable fiction
, weshallovercome , like once upon a time . . .
