Existing to be Forgotten

I am existing, knowing that I will be forgotten
like a distant whisper, dancing with the wind
an empty grave, bare tombstone — Simi
I arise on June 19th, 2017, expecting there to be a riot. I, at least, in the middle of putting on my clothes, expect to see a headline, or something indicating that we are fighting for her too. There is nothing. There is waist-deep, deafening silence. There are marches missing thousands of bodies, and without the boom of a thousand voices, and I am not surprised — I just expected more. I thought that a black woman might get more this time, and I was wrong, yet again.
On June 18th, 2017, Charleena Lyles was killed for being black, woman, and mentally ill. Those titles left her no room to breathe out an explanation before she was killed, in front of her children. She was denied her right to be an imperfect human. While her story is as gut-wrenching as they all are, what causes my heart to sink, every time a black woman suffers at the hands of police brutality, is what comes after — even the earth isn’t this calm after a storm.
I spend some of the following day waiting for the majority to rise up in a whirlwind of rage. I spend most of the day getting further acquainted with disappointment. I spend my entire day looking in the mirror, knowing that I have been Charleena Lyles — black, woman, and mentally ill. I spend the rest of the week crying, knowing that her fate could be mine too, and just as quickly erased.
This is not to say that Charleena has been left behind by all of us. I know her name has been written down on the list of many, carved into a few mouths, and hearts, never to be lost. I read about the rallies, and the vigils that I desperately wish I could have attended but none of that felt like enough. With each black woman killed at the hands of police, I feel this suffocating rage and I wonder how everyone else is breathing so easily, how they can bear to breathe at all.
The names of Mike Brown, Treyvon Martin, and Tamir Rice have been etched into the fabric of society — when people thrash into a riot, they will think of them. They are the names said when asked why, and while I mourn them like I mourn any black person killed by police, the fire of my rage only grows because I know that the names of black women will not be said when asked “why?”
Despite black women being the soldiers on the front-lines of this war against all the systems designed for our demise, black women are the least spoken about when wounded, even killed within this fight. Think back to the missing black girls, how many of us fell into a cry for justice that burnt out as quickly as it began? How many of us have already left their names within the ash? How many of us have forgotten that they are still missing, and continue to go missing, without so much as a whisper, everyday? I will not lie, and say that I am not sometimes guilty, but I will not lie and act as though my environment did not birth my guilt. I am not surrounded by outrage, so I sometimes forget that cities are still silently falling apart. I forget that there are still names left to be said, to be remembered.
This narrative of silent disappearance is far too often attached to the backs of black women — this story of being left behind, of only being remembered sometimes, despite being around at all times. Misogyny, patriarchy, racism, and sexism erase the names of black women from the mouths of the people, from the fabric of society and from the headlines of the day, and the only ones willing to combat this are black women. Do you know what it is like to be the only one fighting for yourself while fighting for everyone else — to exist, and fight, thrash, scream and burn knowing that you too, will soon be as relevant as the dust from which you came?
Everyday, I think of my sister, of my aunts, and mother, and hope that their names do not get hushed, and buried underneath the weight of everything else. I pray that they do not get tangled in this web of living with their existence always being secondary, and their disappearance always being last. Not only do I pray, but I ensure — I make them feel like their last breath would be my last one too. I tell them, and myself and the rest of the black girls and women that I have come across that despite the reluctance of the rest of world, I will always fight, I will always remember, I will burn cities down in their name.
*Photographed above is Still Here by Joseph Rodriguez, a photo series on going back to Katrina.*
