BY JOURNEY FORD

They say all bad things come in threes

So I brought my Florida Water

to help these concrete

flowers bloom from

cracks.

They step right on them.

I seek justice.

but

I am Conflicted.   

Niggas would never pray for me

Just speak on me

until I seethed

but I was only being me 

when I wasn’t strong enough to be … 

Conflicted. 

I see a trash bag flying in the wind this morning.

plastic will touch the limit before I do.

those microplastics will touch the limit before I do.

do they even pray the way that I do? 

They’re not so

Conflicted.

I resist it, but shifted 

My depression. See, I’m gifted

She sees me, but I’ve drifted

“She’s yo mama” but she addicted. 

It’s Stockholm and it’s twisted.

It’s worse than I predicted

I’m grown now, I ain’t with it

Yet. 

and sink into the floor.

Now I’m just liquid. 

I watch a puddle form.

My heart’s a hush harbor

I keep hush-hush

and sneak my prayers.

How much does a Nigga have to pray

to be heard by God?

And whose prayers will he answer

if he could hear how far

we are

from heaven? 

I am

Conflicted. 

The earth will drown under the sea of water

collected by plastics reaching the limit

but ain’t shit a Nigga can do if we already know

we won’t make it.

it will swallow you whole,

what’s left is just Florida Water

where my Niggas will bathe themselves

of themselves,

the way we were meant to be.  

not Conflicted.

Will you remember me

“When I’m not mortal, man?”

Will you pray to God when he doesn’t answer?

“Will you still be a fan?”

I’m not a mortal man,

maybe I am just another Nigga

drowning with many Niggas

I’m a puddle of other Niggas

but if I pray for us all,

Will I become a stigma?

the enigma of Niggas

Praying for fulfillment 

Quick?

I feel so conflict-

Feel that raindrop?

it stings, it hurts, 

it’s so much work

to get out of this water

we swim and swim

we seep into each other 

mudslides

and we are washed of ourselves.

I kept my Florida Water on me,

to wash my Niggas of our ancestors.

the Spirits.

we’re recycled like plastic,

we’ve been to heaven too.

And we become everyone.

every Nigga in one.

Immortal.

Human.

---

Artist’s Statement

This piece was influenced by the messages of racism, control, mortality, and loyalty found in Kendrick Lamar’s track “Mortal Man” and Jordan Peele’s film “Get Out.” I used these themes to write about the loyalty of Black people to Christianity in a world where we started off under its control, and where its ideals, in many ways, still influence us. In contrast, people who question our loyalty to the Faith are stigmatized and perceived poorly. 

Kendrick Lamar’s “Mortal Man” is a powerful testament to his heroes being “fanned” over after the mistakes they made during their lifetime. Lamar questions whether the good that they did would still guarantee their popularity, loyalty, and legacy. I therefore question where our own loyalties lie with respect to Christianity, since it’s still used as a tool to control and stigmatize those who drift from religion.

Meanwhile, “The Sunken Place,” from Get Out, brings up how easy it is to collect Black communities to manipulate and control them with religion, and how we push this ideology on each other, so much that we lose ourselves. 

My poem ends with inspiration from Rumi’s “Be Melting Snow.” In this poem, the phrase “Wash yourself of yourself” means to loosen yourself from the limits to which you are confined, and to find your way, melting into consumption of the spirit.