Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
Crows are curious creatures. Often, they gather in large groups— particularly in the winter months— and feed off of the flesh of some unsuspecting animal. As omnivores, they eat anything, do not discriminate in what they devour, never stop searching.
* * *
I remember. Or, I don’t— I know. I have heard. I have read about. I have seen pictures of. I have seen evidence of. I have been subjected to.
There was a history teacher who did not know. Who asked us who. Who seemed unaware. There was a girl— me— who was furious. Who had reason. Who always kept it to herself. He was 14? He had done talking, but not with words? And then not with sound either. He was just a boy. He was just a boy. They always are. They never are. They become dust.
I went there. I saw the building, now covered, crawling in weeds, vines, overgrown. Just like the nations memory, the place is forgotten, unremembered, left behind to erase the past. It was Money, Mississippi. A store, just a store, but somehow it became a coffin. He whistled, he didn’t, he walked in and disappeared into thin air. The pain flooded in when I saw it. There is a place. There is a place where it happened. A place with a name. A place that still exists. A place that no one has burned to the ground yet.
I read the report. Or pieces. He was accused, charged, and convicted by the same hands. Not a jury. Not a judge. They never get a jury. They never have a judge. He was thrown into a body of water as if returning to the womb. As if they knew his shallow, watery grave would come so close to birth, it would confide in it.
There was no trial. Maybe a real trial but not a true one. Maybe a tangible justice but not an honest one. Or, scratch that. There was a trial. There was a jury and a judge and a guilty party. A guilty people. A guilty conscience. But there was nothing more than white noise. No innocent boy. No empathetic mother of three in need of justice. There was no single tear. No possibly. No maybe. No “I suppose.” There was only assumption. Blame. And the absence of it.
A funeral is not a funeral if it is not a celebration. A boy is not a boy if he dies— or is killed— for being a man. There was… a showing? A show? An exhibition of sorts. There was mourning. There was crying. There was a world that did not know they were helpless until they were. There is a world that does not know it is helpless and yet they are. There was a boy— is a boy— who suffered. Is suffering. Will suffer.
The cover of jet magazine. A boy who wasn’t a boy but is also not a boy anymore. A boy who was seen as inhuman became of some sickness, some disease. A boy who is here but also gone. Who haunts us all but not the right people. A boy who is in Money, Mississippi and the Tallahatchie, and my brain, always. A boy who looked like us. Looked like me.
A murder that has occurred. A murder that has been discovered. A flock of crows under white sheets. Killing any memory that bubbles over. Killing any boy that stands up in broad daylight. There is a death. Sometimes— most times, I hold on too tightly, but still, have no grip. I open my mouth, and the wrong words spill out. I look them in the eye but have nothing in my heart that will snatch the red out of me. I do read some and write about what I can but I am only a girl. Only a piece of what my parents were. Only the sum of a too-long equation. I am the mess of numbers and symbols that cancels out to equal one. One. I am only one.
And so was he. The boy. Who is not known by my history teacher. Who seems to flee like a flock of crows in the night. Who disappears and only returns when some starving artist needs to take something not belonging to them.
I am not hungry. I am not fasting. I am not dead… yet. Miracle? I think not. Coincidence.
Here is how it goes: boy is alive. Boy is dead. Somewhere in between, boy moved or breathed or lived the wrong way. Some would say he did it all. Some would say it was a lie. It is simple. He walked into a store, walked out, and did nothing. Lies were told. Two men arrived at his aunt’s home in the dead of night and pulled him from his cocoon. He was tortured. Subjugated. Slain. Slaughtered. Heaved into the Tallahatchie. Made to be forgotten. Then was found. Surfaced. Was made an open wound. Was made a memory. Was mourned. Then on every street corner. In every mind. Made a beautiful flame.
I remember this story. Its fragment and lack of justice. I think of this as I sit on the subway, thinking of all of the conversations I did not allow myself to have. The teacher I could not fathom educating. The world I could not fathom educating. And there is too much to say. There is a swell. The bad kind. Not the music kind. The raw, red, raging kind. The kind that burns to the touch but must heal. And it is a wound that exists everywhere. It is the world's to heal. Here. Now. This is not better. It is not augmented. It is modified. It is a rope versus a gun. It is a master versus a warden. It is new. Not better.
So, here I am: I learn things every day. I lose things every day. I win nothing but my life. It is a prize. It is given to me— awarded to me, by a god I am not sure is mine. And so there it goes. I am in a house in which all of the walls are white and everything I say echoes. I try to speak, but my tongue is cut out and handed to me. I try to struggle. It ends in heaving and dust. I write poems about death and dying and being afraid. I try. I try and I come to a realization: maybe you kill yourself before they can.
* * *
There is a wish, or series of wishes, I have. A list I need to make. And I worry when death comes, will I be able to catch it with both hands? And so I say it:
When I die, I want to have seen the most beautiful sunset, the second black president, the first woman president, the first time I love America, a flag raised high that does not spit on graves, a brown boy not being afraid to live, a white boy not being afraid of losing a fight, a people I don’t fear, a life I don’t fear losing, a heart I can have broken by more than this nation, a life all mine. A life. All mine.
When I die, I want less of it all. I want no strain against the closure of an old era. I want to not pass the confederate flag every time I drive through Virginia. I want a constitution that applies to me. I want a higher life expectancy. I want to not be afraid of those who are supposed to bring me peace. I want more smiling. I want less red lining. I want less running from the darker colors. I don’t want fear. I don’t want fear. I want hope. God, I want hope.
When I die, I want a future in which there is not unknowing. I want a people that teach. That learn. I want a secret, forbidden, divine knowledge of the dream we all wanted. I want no more homes filled with crows in white. No more hiding from the dark. No more heart racing at the supposed safety. I want no more love that is taken away by unjust justice. I want something that I do not even know of yet. That is the problem.
When I die, I would like a fight. A shout into the void. When I die, make sure it is just. Make sure it is not by the hand of another wanting me a whisper. When I die, I hope I have grown old, grown cautious, grown weary and wise. When I die, let my name be not a hashtag. When I die, let me be older than 17 or 21 or 30. Let me die a death made for kings— or just people less brown than I. When I die, I’d like to have seen my adulthood grow in front of my eyes. I’d like to have seen more than the rest.
When I die, I want no roses, no flowers, no petals or stems. Just read me something you wrote long ago and were too scared to share. When I die, do not leave my memory be. Say my name. Louder. Make it heard. When I die, if it be before my time, do not tell them of my mistakes or my screams. Do not give them reason. Do not say I whistled. Do not say I yelled. Do not say that I deserved it. For you do not know if I did or not. You are not the judge of that. But they decided they were.
Whoever did the killing, used their own gavel to sentence me to death. This is so simple. This is too hard. This is the thing: I do not want to die young. I do not want to start a sentence and then not finish it. I do not want my skin to be a curse. I do not want my skin to be a curse. I do not want our skin to be a curse.
* * *
How many stars are on the confederate flag. Where, in the south, is it illegal to be black. How do you travel from south carolina to New York in bare feet. Who was the president in 1863. Why did he free the slaves. What is the definition of an ally. Do you know what the paper bag test is. Do you approve. Where is the line between north and south. What is the 13th amendment. What does it mean. How many were added to the population once 3/5 became 1. Who invented the filament. Who invented the mailbox. Who invented the blood bank. Who invented the traffic light. Why did explorers travel to Africa. How many were killed by hoses. How many were killed by trees. How many are still hanging from ropes. How many were under 20. Why is cotton important. What is a sheet made out of. What does a cross mean to you. What are civil rights. When do people win them. What is a synonym for slavery. What is a synonym for incarceration. Does the government own a thesaurus. Why are people born into captivity. What does the national anthem promise. What is the first amendment.. What color is a prison uniform. What color is a police officer. What is the average life expectancy. How many years does it take to live a full life. How many votes does each person get. How much prison time is enough. How important is money. What is a ghetto. Who lives there. When was the first black president elected. Why. Who was elected afterwards. Why. How many boys have died because of the status of their mothers. Who determines guilt. What is a jury. What is the definition of a defendant. Does he always have an afro. Is the accused dead. Did they use the worst pictures. Is he black.