To Be Affrilachian, and: Reflecting on a Dream in Which the First Boy Who Called Me Nigger Stabbed Me in My Right Lung Twice, and: Proper

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• To Be Affrilachian, and: Reflecting on a Dream in Which the First Boy Who Called Me Nigger Stabbed Me in My Right Lung Twice, and: Proper
• Torli Bush (bio)

TO BE AFFRILACHIAN

is to be the coon and the coon dog, tree myself on thehighest branch to jump noose tied, Judas:guts bursting to make love to the fieldcause kissing my brother is impossible.I am bothnot brown enough to be true& just brown enough to be target, and the white people I'velived around my whole life will ask why I putmy hands up, take a knee, can't breathe, want to light the starsand bars on fire:use the coal that killed my grandfatherand the sugar cane my mom's ancestors cut to burn it like Sherman,dust and ashesconsuming their "blood and soil."The soil I grew up onwas West-by-God Virginia, which is to say we have a love affair withunions, which is to say we know how to teach old rich, white bastardsin suits a lesson.To be Affrilachian is to hold all of thisas a fire in my bosom pen it down as a poemunder Holy Ghost inspiration; call it a negro spiritual,cause my soul is still south of the Mason-Dixon [End Page 91] full of people whistling Dixie:it is the old white man with his four canine teethframing the black hole of his mouth calling me Nigger!on primary election dayin my hometown of Webster Springs for holding a sign in protest:We are all made in God's image and I stare into in his eyes wanting tobreak all four frames of that black holebut I clutch the sign bite my tonguebecause my black mother, a poet, left her muse to me as her dying giftafter my birth,and my white father, a sailor, taught me death is the only thing toweep over:her mother was political revolutionary in Grenada,his mother worked her whole life around food in Webster Springs, herfather was a tailor in Barbados,his father was a coal miner in Craigsville, and I am an engineer inBridgeport,but that old stranger knew nothing of this. Saw my skin and his eyeswent Fox News red, Fuck your Jesus. [End Page 92]

REFLECTING ON A DREAM IN WHICH THE FIRST BOY WHO CALLED ME NIGGER STABBED ME IN MY RIGHT LUNG TWICE

I don't know why dream deaths feel so tangible. I don't know why you appeared to me, Toby. We haven't spoken in years, and you are far from that blue-eyed, blond kid who called me outside my name. Maybe you were a symbol this time, but my sleep has no need to paint you as a villain, so what then? Forerunner, warning me that my home is no longer safe, or that it never truly was? I don't blame you for playing your part in this vision: Webster County was its own hell once for people of my skin. Perhaps that is why my grandmother told me I wasn't Black when Marleena called me a nigger before you did, why others still tell me I'm more "culturally white" cause I'm mixed and grew up inbetween three mountains not knowing if any trees were familiar with the grasp of a throat. Toby, if I see you in my dreams again, I hope we'll be playing football together like we did in grade school. Maybe I can hit my blocks right and carve a path to daylight for you. [End Page 93]

PROPER

As in "You're so smart."As in "Turn that rap off."As in "You're light enough, my dad might just see you as you." As in"I've always seen you as more culturally white."As in "I never expected you to step out of line." As in "Why do youspeak so formally?"As in "You're mixed, not Black."

As in "We both think you'd be a good fuck." [End Page 94]

Torli Bush

TORLI BUSH...