An Alternate Reality
A poem about a glimpse of how our world could be
Written by Chudi Oraedu
On no particular evening
I stared at my bathroom mirror,
Caught the gaze of my own reflection
And in that finite moment of understanding,
He spoke.
“Where are you?” He asked.
In an instance of stupor I responded
Without pause,
“I’m in the bathroom.”
He insisted in his question,
“Where are you?”
I persisted in my answer,
“The bathroom.”
He shook his head.
His lips moved with a confidence I could never find within my own,
And he said,
“No,
Where you are is in a state of conflict,
A deep confusion that manifests into never-ending depression.
You are living in constant chaos.
You inhabit this plane of existence because you’ve seen no other way.
But I can show you something different.”
I beg him, “How?”
And he offers:
“Let me take you through my alternate reality,
A reflection that’s void of your society’s blemishes.
An alternate reality
Where a woman can make one dollar to every man’s one dollar
And that is the end of the discussion.
Where bullets are banned for tearing through flesh instead of the books
that teach us to be different;
Where having pigment of a brown shade
Does not criminalize you and faith in the Quran does not translate into
“Terrorist”;
An alternate reality where no human life is illegal and
We tear down our walls of ignorance instead of building them
Where no one dies of famine in a world that can feed everybody
A place in which our profit does not dictate our freedom;
An alternate reality
Where black men aren’t greeted with gunshots
And gifted with jail cells
Where there is no “good” skin tone, no “good” hair
Where every girl blessed with melanin
Is told that she is beautiful and she is worth it and that ebony is
strength
Because it is the truth;
An alternate reality where we care about each other
More than our fake fodder materials
A land in which our minds are not confined to tiny cells in tiny screens
Where we aren’t absorbed in this façade
And we can express ourselves through more than the things we bought;
A world where we’re less concerned with being liked and more concerned with making a difference
Where we’re not too numb to value something real and free and beautiful;
An alternate reality where we can hold hands and take that last step
Forward
Toward that inevitable horizon as one.”
My reflection stops speaking
His words are so vivid,
I can see it,
I can feel it.
It’s there and
It’s true and
It’s tangible…
Almost.
I reach out and
Nearly touch this alternate reality
But my hand is intercepted by
Glass.
I’m just in the bathroom
And my reflection still stares back at me.
