Poetry by Amyiah Hillian

October 25th

Last night my mother called me.
Her voice rocked a bit.

Your grandma and I can’t go out at night anymore …
It is too dangerous 

There is this mirror that we are chained to.
This chain is cold and every so often, we forget it is there.
Until we try to free ourselves and we are reminded of its
power. Dank and dark.

My mother, had gone so long pulling
Forgetting the chains that held her captive to a mirror, to herself.
And Louisville
A reflection she’d rather mourn than see.

It is not what he did that made her stiff.
It was the way their bodies melted.
I am sorry,
Maurice Stallard.
Vickie Jones.
Someone should apologize.
And I feel like the world should know.
Our elders are weary, pay attention to the brown people in distress.

My mother is scared and that scares me.
What she saw in that mirror, what pounded at that glass
Wasn’t something her mind had created.
Two elders died. One 69, brown. One 67, brown.
One spared.

My mother couldn’t stop hearing his words, loud and deep
Whites, don’t kill whites.
And it sunk into her like a liquid, mixing fear into her blood.

The strongest brown body that I know shrinks in public,
When most are appeased and unafraid, she is constantly toiling with the thought of her death,
how she will wash away like she was never really there to begin with.
The reality of melting
That should scare you too.