Hidden/ness
A short writing response reflecting on images of performance and Black queerness in the shadows.
“what does it mean that blk folks cd sing n dance? why do we say that so much/ we dont know what we mean/ i saw what that means/ good god/ did i see/ like i cda walked on the water myself/ i cda clothed the naked &fed the hungry/ with what dance i saw tonite/ i don’t mean dance i mean a closer walk with thee/a race thru swamps that fall off in space/ i mean i saw the black people move the ground & set stars beneath they feet…” — from Ntozake Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo.
“We make love in a loveless world / We make holy our Black queer bodies / We anoint them sacred / We conjour heaven” — from Joe Tolbert Jr.’s poem “Heaven Somewhere” in Enunciated Life by Taylor Renee Aldridge
We cherish tomorrow like a faraway beloved because only tonight is for certain. Tonight, with our masks on and bare, we will throw away our tact and instead hold hands with the unknown of the endless darkness. The sun makes its final descent, and then the moon waxes ruby red. The clouds breathe up brown dust from the top of the furthest hill. This could be Monday, or Friday, or Saturday, but it is always before tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow will not come again, but we have decided that tonight we will become more beautiful. Lovers on a mission, we are. Into oblivion my lover goes.
Sometimes, if the conditions are right (if the undertaker does not expect our young heads on a platter; if the mindless touch on a bosom of a sister does not signal mourning; if the crevices of the alleyways are silent and ever still; if we are not being watched; if we exchange our dark masks for ones only paler in essence but alas, dark enough; if the pothole near the market remains as deep as we remember; if our imitation is taken as veritas rather than an object of cruel mockery; if a laughing baby girl is unaware of her hold on our collective tranquility; if we flirt with each other and the idea of freedom also with open arms; if capture becomes a game of allure instead of an enticing death; if we may finally choke up the facade of relation and ascend into the indiscretion of our youth; if sibilant whispers warn us just in time; if tonight is before the sirens wail and the brass rail is triumphant against the ornery of chittering pigs), then tonight comes simply. If the conditions are right, tonight comes with an irreducible openness.
Sometimes, we are the oddest of bodies arranged, dancing with the violence of the world, touching a shoulder, mending an angel’s uniform while we together heave. Bruised but never crestfallen. Cake walking all the way to a promised land. You can assume we wear our masks with pride.
When we ridicule our tyrants, we do so with a knowing that we do not belong. On some level, if we are all lost in our innocence and anticipating the world’s love, what is left is to find where we are, where we imagine the depths of one another.
Where are you?
Dance is our religion. Dance is our non-religion, for this non-place. At the helm, when the moon has, of course, disappeared, applause echoes. But in fact, there is no applause. No eternal standing ovation either. It is not applause that we hear but the discordant abyss of it all. For this is not a theater, but a mirror. You are wearing my mask. I wear yours. I am searching for the swan songs hidden below your bones. We are stomping up recipes for survival buried underneath the stone. The ground is surely shaking, coated lovingly with our tears. And I am certain it is the glitter between the crests of our elbows which turns gold by the moonlight, casting us into a confection of bronze creatures in the dark. We are searching for a relief, a dazzling carapace in this coal mind called America.
Until then —
With love and gratitude,
G.
what a stunning impactful piece! great job and beautiful writing :)
Beyond beautiful