“ history is going somewhere” 

sophie chiang

in the darkness of after / life, / no one can whisper echoes in my ear, forcing me to change. / this is the difference between / black and white, in and out. no one can tell us / how to speak, how’s it going. / and how our life becomes weightless. / when our very existence is examined, We are family. / We are a great city. / We are a house. / We are the birds. / We are found. / We are history. / We are future. / We are not different. / not black stains on the white picket fences, nor / yellow splotches on the marble floor, nor brown / specks in your blue eyes. / our children will walk past our graves. / they will sit beside each other at the church, holding hands. / all they want for Christmas is more salt and pepper: a crude reminder / of our division, of our blackness and whiteness. why did they do that? to a lot of people. I never understood why. floored, / in their reimagined world of / love and light and 

history.