Certain words make me nervous
like nervous
which creeps down my spine and spreads through my body
infecting all my senses, as nerves are created to do
As a child, I was a 10 O’clocker
Too smart for whatever was being taught
from eight O’clock in the morning, until the first recess
I spent my mornings at The Electric Company
assuming it was somewhere near Sesame Street
where they seemed to have a lot of things
that did not belong there, like me
“One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong”
They would sing
“Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?”
Looking back,
I learned a lot about labels on this
puppeteered road to ABCs and 123s
I would check in on Miss Piggy
and her unrequited love for the frog
She was desperate in the type of way
the kids today call thirsty
I did not know any women like that
because I did not know my mother well yet
but that is another story
about a White woman
who gave her Black daughter away
Sesame Street had a funny couple
Bert was so uptight, like almost everyone I knew
Ernie was so annoying, like me
He was a master at
button-pushing passive-aggression
which was not a new idea in the 70’s
The Count had the kind of swag
my big sister’s boyfriends had
when they came calling
He seemed familiar in that way
Plus, I liked counting, on account of
I like to be right and numbers are quite precise
As compared to words, whose rules can be contrary
Poor Oscar. I really felt bad for Oscar
It is with him that I most identified
Not because he lived in a trashcan
He seemed to be very happy there
But because the Sesame Street community
was, in my mind, that often searched
for quiet time, in a house with 5 other foster kids
Intrusive of his privacy and judgmental of his choices
They just walked all up on his trashcan home
Making him come out, calling him a grouch
“Of course, he’s a grouch, you keep disturbing him!”
My momma heard me say to the program one day
“Girl, you done been here before,” she said
Though I did not get it then, I knew how to pretend
to comprehend what she meant
Eventually Sesame Street lost me
for the judgment and drama
But at The Electric Company
It was all about father figures and words for me
every day I was carried away by sounds, words
and a smart Black man with a massive vocabulary
with rhyming songs, sung by people
who looked like people I knew, loved, or wanted to
people who shared the label that defined me
people who belonged in my mind
people entitled by some distant bloodline
to be involved in my thoughts
people who had the rhythm and vibrations
to make me comprehend what they were saying
This was an impressive thing to a foster child like me
So, I became a “Melody Matron” “An Easy Reader”
“Young Gifted & Black” “Moving on, in a new way”
lead by a man I secretly thought was my father
Morgan Freeman was a young man then
hooking me on phonetics
Socking me with The Knock Knock Rock
as Mel Mounds, a super cool DJ
who wore an Afro and dark shades
and smiled so bright he lit me up
They used language and wore clothing
I recognized in my own neighborhood
Bell-bottoms and headbands, and I knew,
whatever I was missing all those mornings at school
was definitely not this cool
Sometimes, they did this profile shot of
Freeman and a woman, facing one another
sounding out words
“help” (pause 3 beats)
“full” (pause 3 beats)
Helpful
By grade three I was an award-winning orator
and a prized possession of the
Gifted and Talented Education Program
for exceptional kids in the ghetto
My video father helped form
me into to the writer I am now
Making me a lover of words
even words that make me wary
and an observer of people
even those whose constitutions are a little scary
You can learn a lot about people
from the words they choose to use
Words too, affect the nervous system
My friend Ami the Yogi
who does not speak as often as most people I know
Sometimes wishes aloud for
the capacity to commune without them
My friend Sonni loves the term overstand
And chooses it over understand
which suggests you stand under something
Some idea or program perhaps
When I consider the meaning of the word program as
“a set of related measures or activities
with a particular long-term aim”
I wonder of the long-term aim of tell lie vision
It was 1977, 4th grade
Roots was released to critical acclaim
And made the single most impactful blow
to my self-esteem with language and visuals
I cannot unhear or unsee
It was a savage story that I did not need to know
in these most impressionable years as my confidence formed
The sight of Black folks on their knees was fictional to me
It was like they took all the filters off Planet of the Apes
to say exactly what they meant
But see, my mother was a White woman
Helpless and in need of overseeing, by many accounts
It was strong and prayerful Black folks
who saved me, when she left me in the street
“Lord have mercy, what did that woman do to you?”
Jesus used to hear about me a lot in prayer circles
of matriarchs who did not look to books
to learn how to love a child
Pray is a loaded word, as powerful as a gun
You can’t just let any ole’ tongue
Work their magic over you
In the end you will find
It is better to deal with your own soul
least you become as prey
I am certain it is no coincidence
Pray and prey sound the same
I suppose we are all at the mercy of something
time, fate, folly and circumstance
but without power, we leave our lives to goodwill and chance
You can wait for God to deliver you from your enemies
but it is you who must deliver you
from the confines of your own perception of yourself
if we only knew how great We are
but we are not the subject of His song
your consciousness is so vast
I am touching you now, and you can feel it
We choose to look outside ourselves for answers
Thanking and complaining to God about things we willed
Mercy is an expensive word that misrepresents itself
It is cloaked in the promise of compassion
Compassion is a sexy word that lures you in
with phonetics that speak to our
natural connection and sexual nature
But a cry for mercy
the expectation of compassion
is an admission of powerlessness
For, only when power is surrendered
will you ever find this tricky little noun
I mean, you could just do the right thing
Without guilt, you have nothing to fear
For when you die, your energy will still be here
Perhaps trapped in a body
fresh flesh for new programming
Passed lifetimes
Forgotten
Or perhaps
you will be ready to be free
by Jessica Holter