I have dozens of photos of myself, nude from every angle, on my phone.
I have photos of myself sitting, crouching, laying down, standing, and every odd pose in between. I have photos of myself from every height and lighting, in all variations of posture, prodding myself as if I am some odd scientific experiment. These photos aren’t sexual. (Despite my collection, I’ve been recycling the same nudes from 2017.) Instead, they are inspections. Validation that the exaggerated jiggle I feel on my thighs when I walk or the way I feel my arms dissolve into a puddle of soft brown flesh whenever I lay down isn’t my imagination. I am getting bigger. Fatter.
This body is useless. I can no longer shoulder the guilt of death. I can still feel the rasp in my voice and the ache of my feet from the last major protest I organized in 2019. On March 25th, Michael Rosfield was acquitted of all charges for the shooting of Antwon Rose II. I remember that electric feeling of unrest in my stomach as I reached out to other schools and colleges to see what we could do. On March 25, 2019, students across the city walked out of class. We’d arranged gathering spots across the city and some high schools even took the bus to join our demonstration. Hundreds of students across the city of Pittsburgh gathered, crying as the rain began to pour. I stayed with my classmates in Downtown Pittsburgh, joining a small group of other organizers to lead our small band of students from Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 into a mass of something much bigger than ourselves. I had never felt so small. We marched for what felt like an inconsequential minute, our screams shaking a vacant city as new station helicopters circled like vultures overhead. The rain began to come down harder, turning maker ink into indecipherable rivers of color bleeding from disintegrating paper. I struggled to keep up with the energy of the crowd, fighting to keep our pace as the mass of bodies and whirlpool of voices crashed against my back. A firm line of student organizers following a palanquin shrine of Antwon Rose II served as the bank for the waves of eager young bodies who were ready to push forward, further into the frontlines. Stragglers broke free of our barricade when we’d have to periodically stop so that the rest of our winding body of grief could catch up. No one was to be left behind. The front segment waited until we were reunited with the back segment, our chants embracing one another like crashing waves. I remember panicking quietly, scared of being consumed by the crowd, and scared of my weakness. I realized too late that I was never meant to lead. Never meant to save the world. I was passed the megaphone and asked for answers, but I had none. All I could offer was Antwon’s name. My voice rang out hoarsely and was echoed by the roar of the ocean as we marched from the courthouse to the jails, inmates banging on the windows in support of our cries.
“Antwon Rose the Second,” rises from the bellies of this beast and defiantly into the sky, silencing the rain and the horns of cars. Only us. Only our grief.
2021
It felt vain to be kneading the girth of my stomach in disgust while Minnesota burned into the summer night. This body is a burden. But I am selfish. I didn’t want to be seen. Instead of becoming invigorated with restless anger as I watched George Floyd join the mausoleum of Black death replayed on my phone, I thought only of how horrific it would be for me to show my ghastly new body. I had spent the last few months of quarantine letting my hands wander at night, tracing the growing expanse of my belly by the length of my hands and tracing foreign fatty rolls in the dark. I would be trapped alone in a room with myself, large and uncontained, for over a year. I had forgotten how to be the girl that I used to be, the girl whom the countless messages on my phone were looking for. How could I face them? How could I lead them? I could barely lift myself out of bed. After spending a year in isolation from my friends while I worked for the city, quarantine swallowed up time and hope. Despite my inability to recall those lost days, they clung to me in the form of new girth. I didn’t recognize myself anymore and I wasn’t sure if there was anything left to salvage. I had failed everyone’s expectations, unable to produce anything as momentous as that fateful March 25th Day.
2019
After the march, we gathered everyone in a massive circle at an intersection near the courthouse. Hundreds of young bodies pressed together, pushing against the barricade of police escorts that watched us warily. We opened the circle for speakers, and I watched as student after student tried their hand at the spotlight, feeling an inexplicable bitterness towards both the disappearance of my voice and the opportunistic nature of some. When it was all said and done, when the crowd dispersed as quickly as they’d materialized, us few organizers were left standing in the lonely street, accompanied by the soaked flyers that now papered the pavement. There had to be more to do but I didn’t know which direction to go. I could only go home.
That day and its aftermath led me to partially lose faith in protest. I was angry that the kids I’d marched with never showed up to the meetings or other programming that I exhausted myself organizing to try to evoke tangible political change. I had extended myself past my limit, convinced that I wasn’t doing enough or trying hard enough to be heard but I soon realized that I was being heard but I was also ignored. I had become a vessel for the instantly gratified relief, labor, and the faith that the kids will somehow conjure the answers. I tried hard to become a better leader, but nothing made sense. Hard work was supposed to bring success so why wasn’t I succeeding? Why didn’t my peers support me? Why didn’t colleges care about my work? Why was nothing changing? Where was the fruit of my labor? I had opened my body and myself up for the spectacle, offered up my voice and the grinding of my bones in exchange for a little bit of faith from my peers and a pat on the back from allegedly allied institutions. I wanted so badly to change the world, to save myself and ascend to a level of ‘potential’ whose dazzling light would obscure my many flaws. I thought I was meant to save us all.
Exhale.
This body is a burden, but it is mine. I am still torn between guilt and anger. Ripped apart by the fact that there are people exhausted from begging, ashen knees permanently embedded with grains of rice, that they’ve lost hope in the system being mended without either the pressure of the collective public’s knees pressing on its neck or complete eradication. I am torn apart by the fact that I am not there, that I cannot bring myself to leave my room, and my nauseating stew of grief. I grieve George, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Antwon Rose, Jim Rogers, and the black glass shards that still carpet the floor of my bedroom. I grieve myself. But something about the summer of 2020 felt wrong. Amidst all the frustration and anger, I watched as the massive grieving Black body was haphazardly transformed into a punching bag and vessel for White kids who wanted to live out dystopian fantasies.
I watched a country genuinely fed up with the burden of complacency and good faith transformed into a perverse capital. Influencers posting vlogs of themselves looting and my Instagram feed is flooded with monotonous black squares, I am swallowed and unseen. I watched thousands of people rushing to meet what they believed to be ground Zero for the leveling of our archaic system but just to take a picture to verify that they were there, feeling their knees buckle under the weight of something bigger than themselves. I watched videos of White kids smashing windows with their #Anarchist skateboards, while the Black organizers tried to calm them down. I saw myself in the organizers who pled for their safety, watching as the situation quickly spiraled out of control while their city burned in the backdrop.
Suddenly, my body is currency. A bullet in my forehead or a deathly cold knee pressed into my chest, in exchange for some free Vans or a cartful of designer handbags. We long to burn down this city that we’ve built, that rests on a landfill of Black bodies but of course, I will extend this luxury to you, James Dean. You don’t want to be a part of the change, only the chaos, only to write your name on the ‘right side of history,’ only to imagine that there might be some payback for those months spent in isolation. Like a parental dispute, you’ll soon make amends with the State and turn a blind eye to the bodies that will continue to pile up. But for this moment, you get to be a Rebel. I will hold them off—the cops, media, and vultures will feast on my supple brown body so that you may fight your war against capitalism and the government that has been so ‘uncool.’ Let our pleas for peace and mercy embolden your heartbeat as your hands bloom into white-knuckled fists because you have been waiting for this opportune time to throw a punch at a crushing authority. So go on, White Kid, let the thickness of my blood as it pools over dark cement entangle the cops into me while you make your escape. Yes, go and flee. Go back to the suburbs and dump out your loot. Wipe away the blood splatter until your Forces shines like new. Discard your black bandana mask and suddenly you are someone renewed. This body is a burden but it’s mine. My death is your burden, recognize this fat black plume in the smoke that rises and the smog that coats your lungs. I am selfish, yes. There are just some sins I can’t let go of.
