Enjoy this poem before or after reading the article. Whatever feels right to you is fine by me.
STRIP by Paula Gillison- Akinwole

Black Women Are The Anchor Beings… And other references to super heroes, mythology, & folklore.

But everyone keeps moving on like everything is normal. Like the death of just one of us isn’t enough to crack open the universe and unravel the fabric of existence.

I often wonder which timeline I’m on or better said, how many times has my timeline split? I think someone removed an infinity stone on the day my anxiety had manifested itself and now I’m left vulnerable. Did we trust a random white guy to bring it back to me forgetting that he was not going to center my world in exchange for his?

On Monday, my husband and I got into his truck with the intention of dropping off our son’s car seat at his daycare. We were gonna go to King’s Dominion but opted instead for thrifting and a movie. Minutes into our travel, the car in front of us pulled abruptly to the side of the rode, rolled down their window, and shouted something at us. We missed what he said. We thought it was a cousin and figured they’d catch up to us in a few. A few moments later, we were forced to pull into a parking lot to avoid what appeared to be a broken down school bus blocking both lanes. Within seconds, the school bus pulled off and we turned to exit the parking lot. The same car from before pulled up again. This time, he jumped halfway out and shouted at us. “I knew you fucking following me.” My husband shouted back that we were not. I later realized that the guy likely didn’t see or hear us pass our tinted windows. We continued our route which happened to be behind this same car. I pulled out my phone to record just in case. A left, then a right, and we were behind the car again. I watched as he fumbled around in his car. We agreed that we should get from behind him but as we attempted to pass him, it was too late. He had rolled down his window and was aiming a shot gun directly at us.

There’s a story from my childhood I remember and sing often to my son. It’s about a farmer and a pig. The pig refuses to “jump over the sty and I [the farmer] cannot get home tonight.” So the farmer walks along and meets a dog and asks the dog to bite the pig. The dog refuses so he asks a stick to beat the dog and the stick refuses. He ask fire to burn the stick and fire refuses and so on through water, a cow, a butcher, a rope, and a mouse. When he gets to the mouse, the mouse asks for cheese so the farmer walks the whole way home, gets the cheese, feeds it to the mouse, who starts the chain. The mouse nibbles the rope, the rope hangs the butcher, the butcher kills the cow, the cow drinks the water, the water quiches the fire, the fire burns the stick, the stick beats the dogs, the dogs bites the pig, the pig jumps over the sty and the farmer and the pig go home…. where the farmer and his wife get to have bacon for breakfast.

Issue: None of this can actually happen if each dead or broken thing has to do a task that they are too dead or broken to do. I mean, it’s a children’s story so it’s fine and my son has never asked how the butcher kills the cow if he’s been hung by the rope. He has never asked but I know the answer. The butcher is a black woman.

Most of my days feel like I’m doing the impossible; existing despite everything being a rope around my neck. My job feels like I’m hanging; underpaid and discounted. I’m being a mother and wife with no handbook and most days, I feel I really suck at it. It is both freeing and an anchor tied to my foot. I feel guilty for my blessings but everyday, it feels not enough. I’m a writer who hardly writes and I got a B in Biology this semester, how harmonious!

I spent the first week ignoring the news about Sonya Massey. Not ignoring her, I know her like I know all black women. But I shielded my spirit from the news, from the details, from the phrase “Get behind me, Satan.” Without watching the video or hearing the details, I remember what the phrase means and does. I grew up in the church. I’m the child of pastors, generations deeps and preached my first sermon before I was a teenager. The phrase “Get thee behind me, Satan” is weighty. You don’t say it as casually as “Bye, Felicia” or “Gonesomewhea.” The phrase is as spiritual as it is guttural. For those who are churches, it’s reserved as the highest cursing out. It’s as if to say that you’ve tested the spirit, found it as evil as the devil himself, and. you’re making a righteous choice to damn them back to hell.

I cried heavy when I finally decided to take a deep breath for Sonya. I hadn’t realized in shielding myself, I was holding it, not breathing. She being an anchor being, like Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Atatiana Jefferson, courses of the world shifted when they died. The heavens opened but they didn’t close.

Maybe they become the infinity stones. Remember how the infinity stones were all incased in something that masked it’s true identity? The tesseract, the orb, the eye of agamotto. Ain’t that like a black woman to be the most powerful form in the universe but tucked in a mediocre scepter or stuffed into the forehead of a perceived super being ie: the third eye for some righteous white man.
Or maybe they become the horsemen of the apocalypse. Imagine that? The great judgement of the world is done by black women who were deemed ghetto, unimportant, and undesirable but turn out to be the bringer or the end of times. You ever seen an angry black momma come home to a dirty house after a long day of work, is that not the end of the world?

I’ve been avoiding the route to my son’s daycare. I’m scared. I hate the feeling. I told my therapist that I’ve been superhuman so long that having regular human emotions feels like I’m broken. I keep imagining the what if scenarios and replaying what today would have looked life if the man in the truck had pulled the trigger. Instead of finishing this article and preparing to put my son’s clothes in the dryer, I’d be chatting with the other horsemen right now.

Time Stone: I’ve seen 8 billion and 13 different scenarios. Kamala win’s one.
Soul Stone: But for who’s life?
Space Stone: This only happens on Earth 311. The other’s are far move advanced than this.
Reality Stone: And then what? Are we gonna pretend it*poof* gets better?
Me: Maybe we should just do the Thanos snap thing? Give them a little tie to cool off is all.
Mind: We’d just be delaying the inevitable.

Unedited Workshop Poems: Float & Sink