How I really feel

Tread lightly, they intimated.

I've spent some time laying on my back, arms bent behind my head, hands grasping my frizzy hair--thinking: I recalled my acting on my anger and taking that anger back in a most disingenuous way; taking back my anger so that one does not think of me as a horrible person, but not because I really care.

Laying there, I ask myself why are we (I) expected to be the ever-loving mammys and uncle Toms; presenting quicksilver compassion and forgiveness? And mind you, we should never expect to have those same gestures given in return, because that wouldn't be very Christian or Buddhist for that matter.

My truth is that I feel no sadness for the death of Otto. My back is crooked from holding my head in my hands, weeping over thousands of Black bodies; Black men and women and girls and boys whose lives meant and mean little to nothing to this government, in schools, within the military, to my friends and neighbours, in this country, far and wide. While Otto is held to a far different standard. His life is precious (and it is) and his family's grief is shared en masse (as it should). However, our Black bodies are expendable. And our grief is cut short—stifled. And our outrage and cries are ignored. And our anger is seen as outrageous, which oftentimes leaves us feeling crazed. So we stuff and stuff and stuff and shrug and chuckle and forgive and protest to no avail until we make ourselves sick. And then we die.

I am not a martyr and your comfort no longer comes before my own. So now you know how I really feel.