Menace to

^{after June Jordan}

as plastic is my enemy. My enemy everywhere
and in my home as wifi is

a money for me to reach my comrades
and kills my house plants. My enemy

is distance growing dark, distance growing
politely in my pocket as connection.

I must become something my enemies can’t eat, don’t have
a word for yet, my enemies being literate as a drone is

well-read and precise and quiet, as when I buy something
such as a new computer with which to sing against my enemies,
there is my enemy, silent and personal.

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“I do think I can get to a place, one day, internally, where I believe I don’t have an enemy. However, given my material condition in this country, given the material conditions of my people in this country, given the fact that the descendants of enslaved Africans in this country have yet to receive reparations, I’m letting myself practice my anger. This is a draft of that practice, which will continue to be drafted as long as there isn’t liberation for African and Indigenous people globally. This is to say, my enemies are those who block my peace.”
—Taylor Johnson

Black Lives Matter Anthology

“it was just a horror

show that was never going to happen”

—“The Pedestrian” by Tommye Blount