RESPOND

The poem: "Apply Pressure" 

Breonna is gone. Eleanor is gone. We, the people, read the names and only recognize the flames of injustice.

Syllable count, heat close enough to the neck. Fred is gone. The people utter their names during protest, during prayer, during wake and repose.

Louisville and Mississippi and Detroit and Chicago, our streets are still slick with the blood of our endangered citizens. Mike is gone. Quiana is gone. Who else got time to sage the polls and the political office?

Evil is alive, and only answers to the tune of money. Indifference is a tsunami thrashing against our chests.

George and Eric and Trayvon, Florida and Milwaukee and D.C. Oh, America, we did not resist your attempts to murder us on a plantation just to be murdered on a plantation. California and Georgia, can’t you see? We ain’t leaving the land we toiled. We ain’t leaving our voice you attempted to spoil. We refuse to submit.

We are parents and formerly incarcerated. We are queer and public defenders. We are educators and entrepreneurs. We are the vote. We commit to freedom. Our spirits have fled from the fire for so long. We liken the heat to cornbread and debates over the Supreme Court or the remote control.

Our vastness is indisputable, our ability to joy and woe and rage and love all tangible, all present, all possible. How else we going feed these babies? We will teach them to know themselves despite your disregard. Our children will not fear their own shadows. Our children will not fear their reflection from the white gaze.

Our children will focus on their own ways of brilliance. And we will continue to stoke the flames, bring down the racist monuments, burn down the bigotry, turn over the pedestal that lifts up your fragility.

We have never tried to hide from this history. We have never demanded more than we’re owed. You can run, but you can’t outrun this destiny. Our ancestors already vowed riding low beneath the water tides or inside the hull of this nation’s nightmare, we will never be gone again.

MAHOGANY L. BROWNE

Mahogany L. Browne, selected as Kennedy Center's Next 50, is currently the Executive Director of JustMedia, a media literacy initiative supporting the groundwork of criminal justice leaders and community members. This position is informed by her career as a writer, organizer, & educator. Browne has received fellowships from Agnes Gund, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works: Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, & Black Girl Magic. As the founder of the diverse lit initiative, Woke Baby Book Fair. Browne's latest project is a poetry collection responding to the impact of mass incarceration on women and children: I Remember Death By Its Proximity to What I Love (Haymarket Books). She is the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and lives in Brooklyn, NY.