untitled. (we carve out a stillness)

by KWADWO ALFAJIRI SHAH
in Fall 2021

Bakari Akinyele, War Cry/Scorched Earth, 2020, 20x29, ink on hanji paper

we carve out a stillness
before the swirling tide rushes in again
in the wake

at times,
i’m inclined to believe in the beauty
of petit-marronage,
of wake work.
those artists’ enclaves.

i think,
but they only succeed in
creating
safety, joy,
love, happiness,
fulfillment,
for a generation,
maybe two,
before the tide rushes in.

before the white
supremacist-
capitalist-
imperialist-
patriarchal-
colonial forces of evil
sweep in again

to gobble them up,
to gobble us up,
to make us submit,

and we do submit, in whatever big or small ways.

but, and?

a temporary beauty, however fleeting, is still beautiful. a temporary beauty is still beauty.

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Alfajiri is just a nigga trying to make it through life. They graduated from Howard University with Bachelors degrees in Afro-American studies and, regrettably, economics. At the moment, they make their living working a government job as a research assistant, but they are searching for ways to be free.