Don't Call Us Dead

hallelujah! today i rodepast five police cars& i can tell you about itnow, whatto do with my internalinverse, just howwill i survive the littlecops running insidemy veins, huntingwhite blood cells &bang bangi'm dead
- from “everyday is a funeral & a miracle”

Incredible collection of poetry. I highlighted something on like every other page, a turn of phrase or way of thinking. The book feels as though it's chronological, though it doesn't have to be - thinking about police violence and black death, always and understandably this fixation on the death of black boys - I wouldn't say all the poems are about death, but most have this undercurrent of acknowledgement about not getting a say in one's own death, and what it would be like to be safe; their experience of being black and gay, and I suppose it could be described as coming to terms with their HIV diagnosis, even if it's really just peering at it from so many different angles that at least it can't sneak up on them anymore.

the test results say i am the fatherof my own end& i ama deadbeat
- from “litany with blood all over”

Smith is an incredible poet, and I want to read more from them. Highly recommend this. My favorite was probably “dinosaurs in the hood,” but so many of these are so excellent.