When I Was Younger

When I was younger, my friends and I would talk about the future.
We would talk about how many kids we wanted and how successful we would be one day
In an almost childish mindset, I would say ‘I want lots of kids maybe three or four’
I would say ‘but I want a son first so he can protect his siblings from harm’
Now as the years go by I have to laugh at myself
The innocent thoughts and joys that consumed my mind have disappeared because the world
does not seem to want the same future as I once did
Now I tell my friends I don’t want any kids
No Sons No Daughters
No child up for an unnecessary slaughter at the hands of those who know nothing about them but
still see them as someone terrifying before someone terrific
someone a mother would give her life for in the same second it takes the heart to beat
I do not want a knock on the door
I do not want a phone call
I do not want to see a video of my child dying
Screaming for me
Praying for their life
Begging that I come save them while people idly stand by and watch them suffer
I do not want to watch my child’s life fade from their body as if I didn’t hold them in my womb and
fight to bring them into a world I promised to hold them in
I don’t want to see my child edited into a cascade of clouds with angel wings and a halo
I don’t want #justicefor—
I don’t want protests just to put a murderer in jail even when there’s video proof of the crime being
committed and everyone gets to watch it again and again and again until it becomes
another dead child lost in time
I want my future child to be able to go to school
To drive
To walk with their hood up or down
To be able to walk alone
To take out their wallet
To buy Skittles
To go to parties To
cash a check To
run
To sleep
To breathe
When I was younger my friends and I would talk about the future
About how many kids we wanted and how successful we would be one day
I would say ‘I want lots of kids maybe three or four’
I would say ‘but I want a son first so he can protect his siblings from harm’
I laugh at myself.
 
◆
 
Exegesis
 
I wrote this poem during the summer of 2020. I was sixteen years old and watching the deaths and protests of Elijah McClain, George Floyd, Breoanna Taylor,  and Ahmaud Arbery. Then, I was seventeen and watching the deaths of Daunte Wright, Brayla Stone, and countless others. I remember always being tired of seeing someone else who looked like me dead and never being able to escape the news because the Black Death became an almost popular topic at the time. Suddenly, it became normalized again, the protests lessened, and life went back to how it was before COVID-19 to a certain extent. It was such a confusing time to be alive and witness so much collective chaos and opinions on who deserves to live or die. I had to get my thoughts outside my head, so I wrote: “When I was Younger.” It encompasses a great deal of the emotions I had at the time and the frustration rattling through my body daily.