It’s Sunny Outside, but the Mourning is Black [Benjamin Stevenson]

Benjamin Stevenson

     Lucid are the dreams you experience when you think about the world today. You wake up to a stale pot of coffee prepared in an old metal percolator that your grandmother has used for the past 30 years. The color is dark, and the taste of iron resonates as you take in the first bit. Gulping it down, you decide to watch the news, CNN of course, but quickly change the channel after 15 minutes of bitter disappointment.

                              Maybe you should have added some milk to your coffee.

     You put on your clothes, choosing each article carefully. The shirt needs to be a neutral color and an acceptable length, not to draw to much attention to yourself. You might normally wear something cropped, or a nice pastel, but standing out is too often synonymous with trouble. Black and gay, however, are not. These are adjectives that are not permitted to be intertwined you tell yourself.

To be gay is to be feminine, and to be feminine is to invite weakness.

To be black is to be a criminal, and to be a criminal is to call for self-punishment.

     Do you really wish to be a hand written invitation to weakness, calling for your own

                                                              punishment?

                          Surely you must, since you have chosen your sexuality and

                                                                               heritage.

     The richness and complexity stemming from these two aspects of your identity have become far too sweet for your counterparts to swallow the way in which you swallowed your coffee this morning. You pick a pair of light joggers as opposed to jeans, because they’re easy to move around in. They provide you with the mobility you and your family have longed for. They will give you the ability

                                                                              To run

                                                                                     To flee

                                                                                           To escape

Now then, if your shoes had a face they might tell other people of all the terrain they’ve seen in their short time with you. They might complain of the warm climate, not of the Earth, but of the political atmosphere. And after causing a commotion they would understand that silence might have been a better option for today, and perhaps they would hug your feet in hopes of soothing their chronic ache. The same ache your father, his father, and his father all felt. Luckily you have nicer shoes than they could have ever afforded.

                                                                      No hat today.

                                                                            That’s far too much.

Finally you slip on a small gold bracelet with ornate little cross engraved in the middle, to act as a reminder of who you really are. They can’t argue with God, or at least you hope so.

                                                          At least you thought so.

Elapsed have the past twenty valuable minutes of your life, but you know that because you have these twenty minutes, you are more privileged than many others who have come before you.

Go back to sleep, and maybe tomorrow your dreams will be different if you wake up.

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