Maafa

So I wrote this new poem.

Maafa on a Monday Ride Through the City
in Which I Decided I Should Just Go Ahead And Die Alone

You have things but say you do not value them, well
only my clothes which I keep because they’re quality
but I could get rid of if I needed to un-tether myself.

Keeper of things, maker of much, archivist of ideas,
I catalog spare moments, napkins inscribed with love words,
journals that say this life happened; photos and some clothes.

I cannot see how things which will eventually turn to ash
should be turned to ash before their time.
Of course I am childless and you are not;

Oral tradition will not stave off the hard drive crash that is death.
No retrieving shit then, I want to say, to your performance of need,
a mirror reflection of me: us—the value we place, then don’t, on our lives.

Once, I want to say, our ancestors were bound by the very lightness
you claim; the mobility of statelessness you embrace; lives we lived
less valuable than leather loafers

& jeans dyed with indigo raped from their land.
But I don’t say anything.  Never say anything to the danger
more real than Alone in My Head, a place I tread lightly but often

and after all, you are here right now.
Right now and apparently only for
Now.