shooTing The messenger - Joshua Braunstein

And I don’t know if police ever found them all but I’ve tried moving on with my life It’s hard, though, when people are staring The look in their eyes says it all They know who I am And they are fans The men watching me on the bus The women I walk past, glaring at me with lust They are the reason I flinch at a camera’s shutter And why I start to stutter… When people say I look familiar I think back to the day I was snatched off the porch And realize I’ve achieved celebrity status in secret I don’t want to But the fans force me to keep it

The Contempt I Bare for Waiting Tables

by Kathryn Novelli

The water in some towns is too stagnant to drink, Run like hell until you learn how to fix it. On any given night you can find me behind the hostess stand, putting all my weight into a place that does not support me, counting roaches to kill the time. And no, I do not neglect the ones disguised as people. Welcome to Mi Peor Pesadilla: Authentic Mexican Hellhole, Where your friendly neighborhood business proprietors are fans of white wash and inconsistency masters of evasion of tax collection, health inspections and customer complaints. Ethics are a far-cry but the numbness that y’all all crave is a couple overpriced buds away. Just take a left off scenic litter ridden highway too far too gone, you know, the street that splays the darling little swamp these folks seem to love sinking into so much, the one they lined with the idols of their lifestyles, convenience and complacency and awh, they call it quaint. “Family Style Dining” at it’s finest by the family that buys the luxuries I can’t afford then loses my paychecks, pilfers my tips, exploits my persistence, But hey, we’re all chasing the dream of a well-insulated wallet, caught by our tails in The Rat Race, but I think you should know

watering down a culture, then overcharging for the product has ceased to prove itself as a lucrative business combo and I’ve lost the drive to sell my soul with that manufactured gusto. The regulars: a gaggle of drunkards and bigots comparable to wriggling maggots trapped under a rock but suffering from illusions of grandeur crafted on the back of ill-gotten privilege; at the register they let me know that entitlement complexes and camo print are all the rage this season. I ask if they’d like a receipt and let them know I haven’t felt the seasons change here in a while. The cook will only speak to me in whispers, tells me I’m pretty so close to me I can see through his intentions in the seclusion of the meat freezer where the hanging animal carcasses really set the mood and I’m overwhelmingly aware that he’s been staring at my ass all day. I know enough about cooking to know that he’s not grunting about chopping onions and enough Spanish to know when he’s calling me a bitch for not appreciating his compliments. Then he asks me if I’d feel safer if he’d walk me to my car. (No.) Coworker, server, friend stands beside me shimmering eyes, sedated, seating people she’s known since childhood at dirty diner tables. They see her now as a personal servant and no more. They don’t say thank you.

She doesn’t deserve this they don’t deserve her but in this place our uniforms match white shirt, black pants the bows of our aprons pronounced on the smalls of our backs synchronized cinching our waists ought to be stretched tall and thin bent into shape to please the men. Your hourglass ladies fulfilling your stereotypes refilling your margaritas and right now I doubt the man at the bar wants that drink more than I do. His slow southern drawl stings my cheek, calls me honey tells me to come closer to him I shudder Honey, like he appreciates the sweetness I’ve been demanded to provide. Honey, like the dollars I’ve been lured with, and I remind myself I’m getting paid to smile, nod and agree, quietly preferably. Stay subservient and resist what my better instincts know when I don’t stray away from his beer vapor breath made heavy with the stink of ignorance and Honey this tea isn’t sweet enough Honey this steak just don’t taste right

Honey you look tense and then his claws sink in and Motherfucker get your hands off my shoulders Motherfucker you’re lucky I didn’t spit in your drink Motherfucker I’m fantasizing about destroying your truck Motherfucker a gay joke is not a way to start a conversation but a race joke is more than enough to end one. Motherfucker you will never own me nor my body and times are changing and you cannot hide your filth in this sinkhole for much longer. The customer is not always right the server is neither a prize nor a punching bag but I hold my tongue. and I’m getting tired. Refuse to appreciate abuse, tip generously.

Colorism

by Shay Patrick

I don’t remember learning much in my primary school days Except that each historical or cultural lesson took us at least 2 months And then we reached February The section of my textbook looked thinner than The words seemed carefully placed The truth unpacked We began with the Atlantic slave trade No specifics on the homes these bodies were stripped from When I asked questions no answers were provided Just directions to a corner, and a head full of thoughts/questions like Did they wear gold and kentia cloth like the pictures I see Were they darker than me Did the lighter skinned girls sit at the top of the boat Did they hold up their red noses Did they watch in anger or with closed emotions when their darker counterparts got thrown over Centuries later we scroll over The dark skinned girl being photoshopped next to a black leather couch or the light skinned girl with freckles being cropped beside a rotted banana It’s team dark skinned team light skinned On the S.S. twitter ship Sailing down the sea of statuses on a timeline Do the two teams rival for survival Dark savages fighting to stay alive in the cargo Light skins having identity crises living in chains and cabins A twitpic posted of brown bodies aligned on the deck captioned Favorite if you prefer light skin Retweet if you prefer dark skin This will prove who’s the prettiest whose human enough to be raped 25,000 RTs to see a vine of the ships crew invading these brown vessels

If 100,000 followers, light or dark, realize we are voyaging on the same timeline Can we turn the ship around Can we stop teaching each other That being brown and black is alright As long as our black has some white And God lessens our curves And curves our curl pattern into spirals, not coils That we are only useful in a tray full of watercolors when we learn how to properly blend Our history keeps forcing us to divide But there is no order of operations for black skin So I challenge us to stop trying to solve for the X When looking at the phenotypes of our brothers and sisters But to study the Y It is hard for us to admire our differences The red hair and thirst for freedom of Malcolm X The mocha skin and unapologetic message of Assata Shakur The blind eyes and open mind of John Henrick Clarke To unlearn ignorance and start asking questions To unlearn the statement of “this is just how it is” We are a people with a history That teaches us the terms race and color are interchangeable But I promise when we look pages deep we are so much more beautiful than that.

Shooting the Messenger

by Joshua Braunstein

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Addrean Ross aka Lil Snupe who was shot and killed over an argument instigated from playing video games.

Now Xbox marks the spot to gravestone on a funeral plot where a mother buries her baby boy in a wooden box. Life is not a game don’t treat it like a console you cannot console someone who had no controller or control over when the gunman pulled the right trigger. In the right place at the wrong time just the latest Jordan Davis with less press because it was black on black crime.

He was a verbal improv artist known to pick and juggle rhymes from where he sat the exact attack had bullets exit out of his back now we can’t get you back. If the only way out of the “hood” is drugs and rap why do you think they call it the “trap”? I’m just stating the facts. How can you call it a project if it’s not a work in progress? That’s nonsense its crap. The penitentiary is the pen and rappers write bars because the system is cracked. Treat your black boys like animals but act surprised when they adapt.

Now watch the evidence stack, he was slain by A stolen gun how could this B we are left to ask Y an X convict had access to a firearm. Now a woman loses the child she held in her arms for your right to bear arms and the world loses a talented young rapper with no rhyme or reason.

But this is no isolated incident. The grim reaper is grinning at the south side of Chicago because the death toll looks like Afghanistan without TV coverage or a word touching newsstands. We have grown numb and accustomed to the violence. Let’s break the silence go to the NRA nail the 95 theses in the front office. Do guns stop crime or do they cause it? Are the two girls from my high school killed at Virginia Tech tragic losses? Is there tragedy in the destruction of a masterpiece when you make it this easy to acquire the tools to erase them? They would’ve graduated in 2011 but their parents learned the unfortunate lesson that college credit doesn’t transfer to heaven.

Human beings are not meant to see or bring death. The proof is in eyes of a returning solider with post traumatic stress. Lil Snupe took two shots to the chest before his lungs sang the sad song of his last breath. How can we brace ourselves and ask who is next instead of reevaluating gun licenses and background checks? Because casual causality of an 18-year-old artist is not something I can accept. Will nothing change until it happens to their own flesh?

How many innocent sons and daughters must be slaughtered and play martyr before America can see farther than the barrel of a gun?

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