a full color magazine; a collection of photos/essays/poems centered around the consumption of black trauma and black love.  

includes a collection of songs.

Ahmaud was murdered. The day I heard the news is the same day I took up running. Something about his death in particular sat with me. Ahmaud’s death. It’s funny how when people die they use our full names. Unfamiliarity. He will never actually be just ‘Ahmaud’. As much as George Floyd will never get to be ‘George’.

 

Not to me anyway.

 

Instead, they will be consumed. Turned into video clips, streamed. Made into martyrs, used as political talking points. Cautionary tales. A reason for my white friends to check in on me.

 

Breonna Taylor will never be ‘breonna’ again. At least not to me. Sandra bland will never be ‘Sandra’. Unfamiliarity. We address people by their full names to express unfamiliarity. Let me ask it as a question;

 

Do we address people by their full names to express unfamiliarity?

 

Yet, we get to know these people in the most intimate, most perverse of ways. These people die and we devour them. We dissect their lives, streak their deaths, and even worse, then maybe determine if they deserved it. ‘It’ meaning, murder.

 

Black people are killed on camera and turned into celebrities. Let me ask this as a question;

 

Are black people killed on camera considered celebrities? Brad Pitt, Sandra Bland, David Bowie, Michael Brown, and Timothee Chalamet. It doesn’t fit.

 

When I hear people use these names I wonder if it’s out of reverence, or more so, out of fascination.

 

When you share these videos, is it with awe?

 

Ahmaud will never be Ahmaud again. Not to us anyway. Unfamiliarity.

 

America is more familiar with Black Death than it is with black life. This is a statement.

 

Black Death gets views. Retweets. For every couple, white people may actually care. If we’re lucky there may even be an apology.

 

But we never get what we want.

 

What do I want?

they don't want us here I hear

let's go to the moon

they don't want us here my dear

let's go to the moon

​

they say we cannot breathe up there

that sounds a lot like earth

they say we can't survive in space

can we survive out hurr?

​

they say the moon is made of cheese

and earth is made of rock

i think our planet's made from niggas

buried on my block

​

i wanna be in space with waves

durags and my thoughts (thots?)

louis bags and gucci slides

for nigga astronauts

​

they don't want us here i hear

and here is never safe

let's go to the moon someday

and try our luck in space

my list of regrets:

eating a caterpillar's cocoon in 4th grade

not helping my uncle pass his piss test

not writing to my uncle when he was locked up

not writing to my father when he was locked up

not sleeping with you

not getting a rent controlled spot in fillmore for $900/month

letting people mispronounce my name

leaving too early

staying out too late

letting this white boy say nigga to me in 11th grade

thinking i looked good in a goatee

thinking 'inception' was a good film

anytime i've gone to the 'after hours' spot

i didn't know i was supposed to stay after, i really would've cause it was crackin

not listening to 'voodoo' by D'angelo til 2013

wearing southpole

not buying that gucci sweater

before my uncle died he asked me for a cigarette. we were in the hostpital and a nurse was watching and i was young and i was scared and didn't give him one and i think about it all the time he stole diapers for me when i was a child

regretting making a list of regrets im sure im missing a lot more