Open Water

Just doing our jobs, they say. You’re free to go now, they say.

‘Are we ever?’ Leon asks.

There’s an anger you have. It is cool and blue and unshifting. You wish it was red so it would explode from your very being, explode and be done with, but you are too used to cooling this anger, so it remains. And what are you supposed to do with this anger? What are you supposed to do with this feeling? Some of you like to forget. Most of you live daily in a state of delusion because how else is one meant to live? In fear? Some days, this anger creates an ache so bad you struggle to move. Some days, the anger makes you feel ugly and undeserving of love and deserving of all that comes to you. You know the image is false, but it’s all you can see of yourself, this ugliness, and so you hide your whole self away because you haven’t worked out how to emerge from your own anger, how to dip into your own peace. You hide your whole self away because sometimes you forget you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes you forget there’s nothing in your pockets. Sometimes you forget that to be you is to be unseen and unheard, or it is to be seen and heard in ways you did not ask for. Sometimes you forget to be you is to be a Black body, and not much else.

The songs are full of nostalgia, which is to say they are full of mourning; one remembers that which came before, often with a fond sadness, a want to return, despite knowing to return to a memory is to morph it, to warp it. Every time you remember something, the memory weakens, as you’re remembering the last recollection, rather than the memory itself. Nothing can remain intact. Still, it does not stop you wanting, does not stop you longing.

You didn’t need to explain to her that you felt joy too, that you were angry, you were scared, that walking home in the night worried you sometimes, because you didn’t know which fate would meet you, the one who looked like you or the one who couldn’t see you, or couldn’t see you as you were meant to be seen, or whether you would arrive home without incident, and live to fear another day.

It’s summer now. You have freedom in her presence and it means you don’t have to hide. When your voice wavers, it is because you’re struggling with the weight of the reality you speak of. Tucked together on her sofa, you read from a work in progress, this passage:

Policemen give each other a warning, like in this video, whereby on seeing an object in a young Black man’s hand, one of a pair screams to the other, ‘Gun, gun, gun!’ before they both unload, twenty shots in all, four connecting with a body that is no longer his own, perhaps never was, after all, it’s not a sudden loss of rights that enables a pair of men to destroy another’s body on suspicion, no, it’s not sudden; the perception of a young Black male existed long before this moment, before he fit a description, before two policemen and a helicopter deemed him to be the person smashing the windows of cars, despite not having proof, despite only being told ‘someone’ in the area was smashing the windows of cars, no, it’s not sudden, this moment has been building for years, many years longer than any of these men have been alive, this moment is older than us all, it’s longer than the 1:47 clip which shows me a ­murder –

You don’t always like those you love unconditionally. Language fails us, always. Flimsy things, these words. And every­­thing flounders in the face of real gratitude, which even a thank you cannot surmise, but a thank you to her also.

There’s a piece of art which comes to mind by Donald Rodney, titled In the House of My Father. A photo: a dark hand, palm turned upwards, lifelines ­criss-­crossing skin; in the centre of the palm, a tiny house, loosely constructed, held together with several pins. You’ve often had such an image, or something similar, where you are made aware that you carry the house of your father, which means you also carry a part of the house he carried, your father’s father’s, and that this man would’ve done the same. Your first instinct is to ball your hand into a fist, crushing the thing, letting the weight drift to the ground; but perhaps it would be necessary to prise open its doors, to search the rooms which are lit, glance into those which are not, to see what, as of yet, remains unseen. Then leave this place, in peace, with peace, both his and yours, intact.

. Much of your joy is lost in the need to hold it, intact, so you try to dull that voice which needs clarity, taking another sip. This is fine, you think, this feels right.

You came here to speak of what it means to love your best friend. Ask: if flexing is being able to say the most in the fewest number of words, is there a greater flex than love? Nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. A direct gaze.

You’re in Spain, on a beach where, on a clear day, you can see the shores of Morocco, when Frank Ocean’s album, Blonde, drops from the sky.

You do not want to die before you can live

You love yourself enough to take care.