I curse the number twelve. I’ve skinned my left knee twelve times, gained twelve pounds
too much over winter break. Twelve goldfish have died in the glass bowl in the living room, and
twelve household plants have struggled to survive, their tendrils yellow and wispy. Twelve years
after my brother was born, I arrived into the world as a naked newcomer, useless like all babies,
eating, sleeping, only capable of nesting into the crook of a soft arm. So weak that even my own
mouth could not stay closed, drool dripping down an unformed silver of a lip. And he was on the
precipice of puberty, shoulders broadening and voice deepening, the small and skinny body be-
coming more and more unrecognizable.
These are twelve black years. I am blind, deaf, and mute. Vibrancy is lost without the senses. The parties where the body surrenders itself to music and faith, the tender kisses given and taken in messy bedrooms, the silly fights resolved within hours, the dizzying eruption within the brain after it has read poetry for the first time, the restlessness of a summer basketball game. I cannot even begin to form in my head what these feel like. All the adjectives you have used to describe these vibrancies, these moments, are yours, not mine. I have simply put my hand out and you have traced remnants of these impermanent vibrancies in your palm, over and over. I have memorized the tracings, desperate to feel memories that have been lost forever. But these are crude imitations and substitutions, second-hand happiness that wear down and disappear over time. I was never there.
The age gap gives and takes. Although he gives me piggy back rides and pats me to sleep, my chubby-legged seven year old self still looks up to his tall, wavering frame, which is far from
These are twelve black years. I am blind, deaf, and mute. Vibrancy is lost without the senses. The parties where the body surrenders itself to music and faith, the tender kisses given and taken in messy bedrooms, the silly fights resolved within hours, the dizzying eruption within the brain after it has read poetry for the first time, the restlessness of a summer basketball game. I cannot even begin to form in my head what these feel like. All the adjectives you have used to describe these vibrancies, these moments, are yours, not mine. I have simply put my hand out and you have traced remnants of these impermanent vibrancies in your palm, over and over. I have memorized the tracings, desperate to feel memories that have been lost forever. But these are crude imitations and substitutions, second-hand happiness that wear down and disappear over time. I was never there.
The age gap gives and takes. Although he gives me piggy back rides and pats me to sleep, my chubby-legged seven year old self still looks up to his tall, wavering frame, which is far from
my hands’ reach. Our relationship is as distant as it is close. Instead of covering up each other’s
forbidden late-night escapades, he will try his best to make sure I am at home, bundled up in bed,
safe. Stories of marijuana and alcohol and all the lovely substances parents do not want to hear
about stay untold. There is no blackmail to expose on each other. Messy last-minute essays are
not written for the other. Trading chores does not exist. We arrived together hand-in-hand at elementary school parent-teacher conferences. He was the parent.
---
I got out of my classes after dark. The world was black and the street lamps made shadows that looked like big hulking men and slinking women. But my brother was there, waiting outside of his humming silver Acura, his white shirt a little transparent from his sweat, presenting me with a smile that made me know I no longer needed to worry.
---
I can hear him on weekday nights. Sheets being thrown onto the floor, hollow cups clink- ing and getting filled up with tap water, soft jazz melting into the room. The sky is orange and he has started smoking. It, all of this, will hopefully leave him in a trance.
He cannot sleep.
He hasn’t been able to for many years now. I can only imagine that his day has been cold. Up in the South Bronx my brother first learned what it felt like to be surrounded by inky rage, by people who hate you and what you stand for, whether you like it or not. These days, after scoring a well-coveted transfer, he spends his time in smoky subway stations and in the crowded streets of Times Square, helping lost tourists find their way to M&M World.
---
I got out of my classes after dark. The world was black and the street lamps made shadows that looked like big hulking men and slinking women. But my brother was there, waiting outside of his humming silver Acura, his white shirt a little transparent from his sweat, presenting me with a smile that made me know I no longer needed to worry.
---
I can hear him on weekday nights. Sheets being thrown onto the floor, hollow cups clink- ing and getting filled up with tap water, soft jazz melting into the room. The sky is orange and he has started smoking. It, all of this, will hopefully leave him in a trance.
He cannot sleep.
He hasn’t been able to for many years now. I can only imagine that his day has been cold. Up in the South Bronx my brother first learned what it felt like to be surrounded by inky rage, by people who hate you and what you stand for, whether you like it or not. These days, after scoring a well-coveted transfer, he spends his time in smoky subway stations and in the crowded streets of Times Square, helping lost tourists find their way to M&M World.
No more black, stony faces with subtle guns hidden under the waistbands of jeans, the
creeping fear that in the decay of Charlotte Street you are not in power, and that the blue on your
clothes brings trouble, not respect. You are a target, looking stupid in your silly little uniform.
Work makes you feel like you are wretched, so unimportant, enough to be not just disliked but
forgotten and ignored, but there are ways to escape it when you can. The law is on your side.
Once you leave the Bronx civil, complaints get dropped. The boys who call you names always
seem to have marijuana on them. The slightest violation, the flick of the wrist, the punch you can
land without consequence. Someone calls you a “chink” and you take your nightstick and you
beat him, over and over, and the wonderful part is that this slips by when you leave the Bronx
because it’s a dying necropolis everybody dislikes, that everybody forgets and ignores.
--
You see the handouts these people just love to get and the jobs they refuse to get. You, who have also relied on handouts of your own, would feel for them, but they sit around and complain and you are shocked that even with Affirmative Action these blacks still will not work. They will still eat up your paycheck and weep for social justice, writing poems and attending protests, while your parents work their fingers down to the weathered bone; skeletons that could not die.
This is how I imagine his day is. I weave these scenes with the hints he unconsciously throws out. I can tell. The surface details suffice. Fuck the cops. His voice wavers when I bring up the latest police brutality video that has been uploaded onto the Internet. Fuck the cops. Welfare budget increases anger him. Fuck the cops. Two brothers enjoying their lunch break have been shot and killed because of their blue uniform and one of them is Chinese-American, and he looks like you. Fuck the cops. His laughter is more strained, more high-pitched, a little empty. I weave these scenes for my own satisfaction, in hopes that I can understand him more.
--
You see the handouts these people just love to get and the jobs they refuse to get. You, who have also relied on handouts of your own, would feel for them, but they sit around and complain and you are shocked that even with Affirmative Action these blacks still will not work. They will still eat up your paycheck and weep for social justice, writing poems and attending protests, while your parents work their fingers down to the weathered bone; skeletons that could not die.
This is how I imagine his day is. I weave these scenes with the hints he unconsciously throws out. I can tell. The surface details suffice. Fuck the cops. His voice wavers when I bring up the latest police brutality video that has been uploaded onto the Internet. Fuck the cops. Welfare budget increases anger him. Fuck the cops. Two brothers enjoying their lunch break have been shot and killed because of their blue uniform and one of them is Chinese-American, and he looks like you. Fuck the cops. His laughter is more strained, more high-pitched, a little empty. I weave these scenes for my own satisfaction, in hopes that I can understand him more.
I have to tell myself that he is more than black anger, that he is not entirely comprised of
these little hints. I have to remind myself of his ways. The way his shoulders lean to the right, a
habit gained from years of computer gaming. The faded white indents of a wallet in the pockets
of his jeans, because he likes to carry nothing else. Any more would be a burden. The scars on
his left cheek, because he pops his premature pimples knowing that there are better things to do
in this world than waiting. The way he really laughs, hand slamming down against his thigh and
brows furrowing, a throaty, deep boom so evasive and loud that it seems to be flooding out from
every orifice of his body.
But then all he becomes is some happy clown, undamaged by a sordid past of some kind. He is a parent. He is a nasty cop. He is an abused cop. He is a warm, older brother. There are too many words to describe him. This is ugly, complex, and hard to look at; bright colors refusing to mix. I have to blind myself from his other colors or else it hurts my head to digest him. Erase out the gradient and the tone you have drawn him in. It paints a beautiful picture but it makes you think too much. Slash out the subtlety with black and white. It is easier to see him this way. _______ must be in monochrome, because he has too many colors. This is the heaviness of being.
But then all he becomes is some happy clown, undamaged by a sordid past of some kind. He is a parent. He is a nasty cop. He is an abused cop. He is a warm, older brother. There are too many words to describe him. This is ugly, complex, and hard to look at; bright colors refusing to mix. I have to blind myself from his other colors or else it hurts my head to digest him. Erase out the gradient and the tone you have drawn him in. It paints a beautiful picture but it makes you think too much. Slash out the subtlety with black and white. It is easier to see him this way. _______ must be in monochrome, because he has too many colors. This is the heaviness of being.
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