Erase something, what?
If it wasn’t horrifying there would have been no Sappho no Sun Tzu
Your favorite song is heartbreaking and it wouldn’t be
if there were no Ray Charles or BB King
that story made you cry and if it hadn’t happened
there’d be no Anne Frank no Phillis Wheatley
you were moved to take action from that motivation that could only come from someone who had survived something and without them
without that thing
they couldn’t have that connection or they couldn’t turn that missed opportunity
that devastation that hurt and ruin and remembering
into anything that Dorothy Parker or Nikki Giovanni needed
to share with me and what could we rely on if you erased what’s already come
even the science of how it all breaks down would be unknown
without the poetry that kept them searching and the music that kept them going
No Miles Davis No Elvis Presley No Aretha Franklin No Iced-T
No James Baldwin No Alice Walker No Pablo Neruda No Rumi
What other way to me could there ever be?
What exactly could I go back in time and be comfortable erasing?
Not a thing.
If there were never any ugliness then there could never be any beauty
so if there was ever really any happiness to begin with
then how did the world make it here to me?
So I do what I have to do to keep it echoing long, let me tell you a story about what happened and then let me sing you a song and let me show you a movie and let me write it all down and you tell it to the others so they know better
from now on…