I can't sleep. Within days, two grand juries took a pass on putting those with badges on trial for the murders of black people. And in between I reel from the death of a child who played with a toy and was gunned down by those with badges and without words of warning.
What sleep I did get was fitful. Not nightmarish. The nightmare I can dismiss. Fitful. Fistful. Sleep with fists balled, fighting toward a place of stillness where there is no world to weigh on any kind of essence of myself.
And I did not get there.
Pop passed on the maxim from Grandma Annabelle, "Every day's a good day. If you don't think so, just try missing one." Most days I awake to that idea as my first thought. This is a good day. My waking confirms this day is too good to miss. Make use of it. Don't do good, be good.
But I am not there this morning.
What kind of day is today? How do I negotiate this explicit knowing beyond knowing that the state does not value black lives? That the condemnation of blackness, as Khalil Muhammad describes it, is woven into the very fabric of this nation?
5:57 am
