
This selection, chosen by guest curator Addie Tsai, is from Bloodwarm by Taylor Byas, released by Variant Lit in 2021.
Colour

Source Text: ‘Have you noticed white people never move out of your way?’ The politics of the pavement” by Haja Marie Kanu | FIRST PERSONGAL-DEM | 20th August 2019
Text of piece:
You notice
a silent game we play
Then a
straightforward question
unspoken
Jim Crow
‘holding space’ on the pavement
not everybody would do it.
reposition
but the (white) woman is desperate to
knee me once again
A third time Strike four.
But wait this
the standard
this
denial
the
rebellion against
negotiations
I’m
seen as a threat
I did
not have time to apologise. to politely ask another (white)
woman to excuse
my right
to space
I
ain’t
free Blackness
never intended to fit
I do not
know
why I know why
No, I don’t
Who knew “colour”
would push me and ask me to move.
I have to stand
between
invisible.


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