bare, witness.

With poetry and photography sourced from Kidd's thesis, bare, witness. explores the theme of lineage, focusing on his identity as a biracial son and father of two boys. November 27, 2023

I Am From

Inspired by George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” poem.

I am from tire swings,

from brotherhoods, “don’t worry, I’ll catch you,” and falling to my back from trees.

I am from below 19th street, in low-income housing apartment #3,

and government-issued blocks of cheese and food stamps used to buy Now and Later candy at the Quick Trip, our only corner store.

I am from playing with the refrigerator’s cardboard box and mud pies, whose dirt and rain soiled my mother’s floor.

I am from John and Jackie, from $4 five o’clock vodka seven days a week, and every day wearing sunblock because of a lighter shade of brown.

I am from my dad leaving …

I am from Southern Baptist Christianity, Shekinah Glory. From collard greens, from the only kind I now choose to acknowledge, black-made mac and cheese, no breadcrumbs, more seasoning, please.

I am from picking cotton and from the wrong side of the tracks.

I’m from the one-drop rule, but never quite all the way black. I’m from Lavon & Leo, who were wealthy later in life. I’m from my dad’s side, John and RosieLee, who were poor all their lives.

I am from the aspiration of finding my blackness through Langston’s dreams deferred.

I am from my word.

I am from djembe drums heard on the Goreé island shores; I am from house music pumping in my soul.

I am from words and movements rooted in my ancestral past. I am the third kidd, but not the last.

Undulating through the jack, I am no longer past but always present. I am transcendessence.

Laughing

My mouth is a matchbook. Each thought is a spark. I speak in explosions, trying to land fire on canvases painted with children laughing.

Eyes squeezed shut to catch a glimpse of what hasn’t happened yet. Digging up what was and burying “can’t” under layers of can, yes, and found. Found in children laughing.

Can we relearn how to laugh? Can we relearn how to do the math that proves we’re more than enough? What if our worth was measured in grams of graham crackers sandwiching chocolate dreams and marshmallow aspirations?

“You’re killing me, Smalls.” I hear it every time we forget how it felt to laugh like make-believe was a blueprint for becoming.

Please know: Laughing is not the absence of responsibility. It’s dreaming with your whole heartbeat. It’s believing the waters are receding. That love is best not taken, but given.

That God wants us to live. Buddha wants us to learn. Hindus want us to be one. Allah wants us to be good.

And me? I just want you to laugh at any attempt to include myself in that divine guest list.

But someone said: “You are gifted for such a time as this.” Maybe it was his time. Maybe hers. Maybe it’s yours. Maybe it’s ours.

It’s time. Time to adjust our 1985 way of thinking. Don’t take them back, Mouth, give them away. Dreams deferred, laughing at our debt of good deeds and the equality we owe and will spend the rest of our lives trying to pay forward in joy, laughter, and folly.

Fall forward. Build momentum. Let the sled run faster. Every child ignores the freeze and lets it go, belly laughs, turning to tears not from fear, but freedom.

I quote Shel Silverstein: “Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy. And the tree was happy.”

I think that tree is you. And me.

We are strong enough to let children swing. Even the grown ones. Especially the grown ones.

Changing. Living. Laughing.