"Candle" by Kelly Emmrich
Breakthrough by Thomas Kneeland
––for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon Reed
When you strangle us,
we don’t just die;
we struggle to breathe
for eight minutes,
forty-six seconds,
followed by our first line
break, and then our bodies
have to work harder
to defend the front line
with interrupted enjambments,
mixed brain signals, adrenaline
and delayed flight responses,
and blue-collared bloody hands,
and burnt rubber fumes,
and singed nostrils,
and bleeding nostrils,
and cries for our mothers,
and cries for our mothers,
to save us from our hunters.
When you kill us,
we don’t just die;
you shoot us without
accurate facts, we bleed
betrayal and stereotypes,
short circuit our stereo
system with slain blood.
We die in rounds because
you thought that one wasn’t
enough. Perhaps one would
keep us alive, but with eight
or nine shots, your evaluation
likely says, “exceeded expectation.”
When you shoot us,
we don’t just die;
we die slowly, and
you change the story quickly.
Then our families have to work
harder to defend honor that
we have already earned serving
a country that never welcomed us
with life-giving love but, instead,
snatched us in with death-giving
prejudice.
When we die
by your hand,
we don’t just die;
our skin breaks and
everything speeds up
before slowing down.
After the ground receives
our blood, our spirits escape
to ancestral refuge
before another round,
before another knee,
before another corrupt officer
kills our spirit of hope
for a more just society.
we don’t just die;
we struggle to breathe
for eight minutes,
forty-six seconds,
followed by our first line
break, and then our bodies
have to work harder
to defend the front line
with interrupted enjambments,
mixed brain signals, adrenaline
and delayed flight responses,
and blue-collared bloody hands,
and burnt rubber fumes,
and singed nostrils,
and bleeding nostrils,
and cries for our mothers,
and cries for our mothers,
to save us from our hunters.
When you kill us,
we don’t just die;
you shoot us without
accurate facts, we bleed
betrayal and stereotypes,
short circuit our stereo
system with slain blood.
We die in rounds because
you thought that one wasn’t
enough. Perhaps one would
keep us alive, but with eight
or nine shots, your evaluation
likely says, “exceeded expectation.”
When you shoot us,
we don’t just die;
we die slowly, and
you change the story quickly.
Then our families have to work
harder to defend honor that
we have already earned serving
a country that never welcomed us
with life-giving love but, instead,
snatched us in with death-giving
prejudice.
When we die
by your hand,
we don’t just die;
our skin breaks and
everything speeds up
before slowing down.
After the ground receives
our blood, our spirits escape
to ancestral refuge
before another round,
before another knee,
before another corrupt officer
kills our spirit of hope
for a more just society.
Thomas Kneeland is an African American poet and author of two full-length, self-published collections of poetry––Shades of Gold (2018) and Uncaged: Breathing in Public (2019). He received his BA in English (Creative Writing) from DePauw University in 2014, where he studied under Joe Heithaus and Eugene Gloria.
Kelly Emmrich is an illustrator and animator living and working in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work has appeared in the magazines Moonhood Magazine, Dream Noir, and Meat for Tea. She studied creative writing and animation at the University of Mary Washington. She is currently working as a beer label designer for a microbrewery in Afton, Virginia and also as a freelance animator and illustrator.
