This essay was written and read by Chanice Hughes-Greenberg during our June 2020 virtual reading, A Time You Surprised Yourself.
I have been consumed by my feelings since last week, when I watched George Floyd die under the knee of a White police officer. I have been unable to think about much else. My studio apartment, where I have been grateful to shelter-in-place since March, has felt both too small to contain the rage that rattles in my ribs, & yet has felt so large & empty. The hours slide into each other, the room fills with sadness, seeping into my bed sheets. I watch the tree outside my kitchen window flutter, watch my cat Huxley paw across the floor. I sit & sit & sit.
I started this essay many times before. I flipped through my memory to pinpoint a moment of surprise & what it taught me, what I taught myself. This essay was going to be about how I applied for a mortgage last year, something I never thought I would do, especially as a single Black woman. It would be less about the actual mortgage but more about the process, the decision, & the growth that I experienced for myself. But as I said to my mother on the phone, “I don’t want to fucking talk about mortages right now.”
Then this essay was going to be about my visit to Weeksville Heritage Center, which preserves the memory & actual structures of the historic neighborhood Weeksville. Weeksville was founded in the 1800’s by freed slaves, & grew to be a safe haven & a community. The essay was going to describe how I finally visited the center, despite living in Brooklyn since 2006, last fall. I wanted to talk about how beautiful the day was, how I read every piece of wall text & every interactive display. How I cried because I was proud, because this history was never taught to me, because I came from those people, came from the same struggle & strength.
But I couldn’t write about anything except my feelings. I couldn’t, & then wouldn’t, push them aside. I have pushed my feelings aside many times throughout my life: in uncomfortable situations, in moments when I felt I needed to remain composed, in moments when I feared for my security & safety. Instead this essay is about the town-hall style meeting my employer held on Tuesday. Less about the meeting itself, but more about (again) my feelings. I had felt anxious as 4 PM approached. The moment I began to speak I couldn’t do anything but express my frustration, my anger. A lifetime of learning, I managed to say.
Afterward I sat with the feeling, my anger. I started therapy in February, four weeks before the pandemic sent everyone in doors, & I’ve been learning to lean into my feelings to get to the root. We’ve talked about intergenerational trauma; trauma that is hereditary, passed down genetically. Trauma that my grandmother, or grandfather, may have felt or experienced as Black Americans in the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s. Trauma that is so deeply woven into the fabric of our nation it’s hard to separate the strands.
I let that trauma, which called itself anger, sit in my chest. I wanted to let the anger speak, wanted to hold space for it. To give voice to the thing that I carry, that so many Black people carry, that we can’t express, that we’re told to keep to ourselves. That infests our bodies & kills our families, named pre-existing condition, economic inequality, systemic racism. This is what the anger had to say:
I am feeling angry. I feel my chest burning, my throat tighten. I can feel the anger in my stomach. I can feel it in my neck, jaw, behind my eyes.
At times the anger feels like it will swallow me. It feels like the only feeling I’ve ever felt. Like the only feeling I’ll ever feel.
When I listen to the anger, when I allow it to speak, it doesn’t use words. It throbs. It hums. My mouth moves & no sound exits.
I ask the anger what it wants. It swells. I ask the anger how, why. It beats inside my chest. I ask the anger how it became, where it came from. The anger is in my blood. My cells. My fabric of being, follicles & teeth & bone marrow.
The anger is named Geroge Floyd. The anger is named Breonna Taylor. Eric Garner. Travon Martin. Sandra Bland. Walter Scott. The anger has so many names. Sean Bell. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Jordan Edwards. Ahmaud Arbrey.
The anger was born August 1619. The anger was born in 1968, 1954, 1787, 1863.
The anger was dropped off the edge of a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The anger was an insurance claim filed for a loss of property. Not lives.
The anger is in the third grade. The anger gets on the bus to head home. The anger is called a nigger by a fifth grade boy. The anger tells the bus driver. The bus driver tells the anger to sit down.
The anger is 32. The anger gets an email meant for the other Black woman in the office. The anger sends it back.
The anger is 16. The anger hears a friend tell a racist joke. The anger objects. The anger is told “Wow, sometimes I forget you’re Black.”
The anger has loosened, feeling tired. The anger wants to lay down. The anger wants to close its eyes.
The anger hears the whirl of helicopters hovering over the neighborhood. Earlier, the anger went to see if the protest was still in the neighborhood. The anger walked East along Fulton Avenue. The anger saw signs hung on gated storefronts: Black Owned.
The anger sits in the dark with its cat, thinking. Thinking. The anger can’t stop thinking. The anger can’t stop the anger. The anger is tired. The anger has been tired since March & the anger has been tired since before March. The anger thinks about how it is tired, how it holds space for both emotions.
The anger can hold emotions. The anger holds space.
The anger is not eloquent in the meeting & the anger cries. The anger can’t express itself, can’t use its tongue to put into words what the anger is, where it came from, what it will become.
The anger remembers.
The anger listens as voices express their emotions, detail their pain. The anger sees itself in their voices. The anger feels seen. Understood. Allowed.
The anger composes itself to ask about actions. The anger repeats the statement, asks what action will take place. I’m proud of the anger.
The anger existed before I did.
The anger doesn’t want anymore dead Black bodies. The anger can’t control this but wishes it could. The anger wishes it could go the rest of its life without seeing another dead Black body.
The anger doesn’t want your White tears. The anger doesn’t want your White sympathy. The anger wants action. The anger wants to burn & wants you to see it. The anger wants to be seen.
I let the anger out & the anger screams, shakes the walls, tears my throat as it rushes out my mouth. The anger is here now.
I sit with the anger. I let it curl back into my lap, let it rest. I collect the anger, calm for a moment, tender now. The anger needed to be touched. The anger hasn’t been touched in so long.
At night the anger & I will go to sleep. It will slink back inside my body, moving through my nostrils, under my fingernails, sleep under my tongue. The anger is tired. The anger remembers.
_____
Chanice Hughes-Greenberg is a poet, Capricorn, & playlist enthusiast hailing from upstate New York by way of Long Island. Her work has appeared in Studio Magazine, No, Dear Magazine, The Recluse, & other publications. She has participated in readings with The Poetry Project, Cave Canem, Brooklyn Museum, Poets & Writers, & The Freya Project. She is also the creator of Who Is She, a newsletter that celebrates creative women.
Chanice received a BFA in Writing from Pratt Institute & was the recipient of a 2019 Brooklyn Poets Fellowship. She was a finalist for The Poetry Project's 2018-19 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellowship.
Chanice resides in Bed Stuy with her cat Huxley & drinks martinis with a twist.
chanicehughesgreenberg.com
