POEM BY: Journey Ford
ARTIST 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. 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.
ABOUT THE PHOTO
"Flower Mural," by Alfonso Torres
The striking contrast between the trash bins and the flowers truly captivated me. One is widely regarded as beautiful, while the other is considered unappealing, coming together unexpectedly in a harmonious manner to create something new and beautiful. Ironically, the nature depicted in the photo is not real but rather a painted representation of nature on a wall, which I believe adds more impact to the photo.
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.
