He runs through life and into

an early grave. Sure, it isn’t

the first time a Black boy,

specially Black queer boy,

specially Black being who cared less

about sticking to a gender

branded on them by somebody else

left us before 26. The Rapper Who

Shall Not Be Named said

 

We wasn’t sposed to make it past 25,

so I should just clear my tears

like cache from browsers

when they malfunction, right?

 

I will not martyr him since he can’t

ask for that. I don’t remember him

or anyone else who saw life as an endless stream,

who slipped off a man-made cliff,

ask to be a symbol. They prolly asked

to smoke weed & be a 20-something seeing

their struggles through like every pseudo

-happy human. You know what I mean?

 

If the Rapper Who Shall Not Be Named

revised this lyric, it would say

 

Black people sposed to make it past 25,

Jokes on you, we organize.

Throw yo hands up in the sky & say —

 

***

 

Tron is the sun that shines on you

till your pores involuntarily speak.

The one & only Tron, Breonna, Trayvon–

all the Black kids-turned-fusions into one,

all our loved ones tethered together; Tron is

the day you caught runner’s high

& the quick release of endorphins

when you finally step outside. Isn’t it beautiful?

 

The idea of Black kids beaming?

 

So many of my classmates have died.

I am only 29. Tron would have been

a survivor of our circumstances, like me,

if he didn’t have to choose to survive them.

 

I can’t stand any of this grief. Even the good parts:

the reminiscing on times we spent swimming

in tears produced by his good jokes—

I don’t know if they were ever good to him—

Does Tron remember being happy?

Does Tron ever regret leaving?

An imprint of his laugh collabs

with my weary ears while an imprint of the Rapper

Who Still Shall Not Be Named plays on loop

in my mind:

 

Black people sposed to make it past 25,

Jokes on you, we organize–

 

***

 

I don’t care what bigots say. What

family disguised as disciples say. What every

-body who got something to say ‘bout what we did

in parking lots filled with hollow cars—

Black queers trying to live inside a lone star state—

all through our lives say. I don’t care

what my mind says

 

(Fuck him. Why would he do this to me?) He did it

cause he’d seen enough. Cause Black queers survive

the dusk disguised as the sun

by every well-meaning colonizer & “loved” one;

he did it cause trauma isn’t meant to be survived.

You choose to live in spite of it, or you don’t.  

 

Black people sposed to make it past 25–

 

***

 

During my morning run, in a Fort Worth hood

we once crushed lemons & made into sweet,

funeral punch, I stop and smell

his breath. I say hello to every Black kid—

especially Black queer kid,

especially Tron, with his light-bright smile

& heart broken in— that I wish

I could kiss. Then I say goodbye

to every want to rest

until we get

more of them out of the sun.