The poem I wrote after I saw Moonlight
My son
My sons
My mother’s sons
I read somewhere that every human on earth is either pre-traumatic or post
So when I see you, small, so perfect
Your rolled fondant chocolate skin rolled over your low-faded skulls
Skin literal perfection, pre-scars
Spirit literal perfection, pre-scars
In-God’s-image-level perfection
You have no idea how perfect you are, how limitless
I do
But I can only see the pre
Before the Big Ones get you
Before the wounds of their wounds get you
Before the generational curses grab at you
Before the lies get you
Before the domestication of you begins
Before the cracks start
Before they start trying to crack you up
To prison industrial complex you up
And once you’re all good and traumatized
All I can see is the post
In the trouble you stir
All I can see are the fresh scars
The older scars
The generational scars
Because I know a secret
That scars are cracks
That cracks are, indeed, how the light gets in
And how it gets out, too
How mighty men of God are formed
Out of clay, yes, but fired, and the cracks healed up with gilt
Knowing this, when I look at your cracked up, scarred up, prison pipelined spirits
I cannot not see the pre again
So, I fantasize that I’ll take my Silicon Dollars
And build a new world for you
Like Elon trying to make Mars habitable, our escape route from AI gone mad
But my island is not an escape from Intelligence
It’s an insane asylum
An asylum for you, from the insane
In this asylum
Every person you pass touches you, anointing you with a little dose of light
Every person who speaks to you passes on a few pure words
Every bite you eat is pure food, pure nutrition
And every morsel of purity peels back an onion skin layer of trauma
Unwinds a little layer of pain
Unravels a little layer of lies
Returns you a tiny onion skin layer closer to your pure self
To your pure, rolled fondant chocolate little self
But with cracks, with light
Purely you. Pure light, but now wise: pure, wise light.
