Welcome (back) to the pink room! Take a seat, get comfortable… we might be here for a little while.
someone I love loves someone in the IDF
A man whom I had never met. u n t i l that moment he broke open his chest to let me and perhaps 50 others inspect the blood that pumped in too many directions after he let the numbers with too many zeros curl into sound and slip from his lips. counts 100 family members. shot or bombed or some other unnamable fatal terrible act by the IDF. by the israeli defense forces. He doesn’t cry. Perhaps tears too, can grow exhausted by this many dead. I am not sure if you can call what it is, my stomach did that evening with his blood fresh on each fingertip. love. or rage. or guilt. or something worse that even words are afraid to name. but perhaps.
for this terrible exercise you will permit me this terrible lie
and I will write.
there is a man whom I love whose entire family tree is underground murdered by someone in the IDF. and someone I love loves someone in the israeli defense forces.
I met a man in a pizza shop. It was along a street somehow seemingly untouched by the project of white queer neighborhood coffee shops that all feel like u t o p i a. built cramped. on purpose. with brick exposed. r e a l. yet unconcerned by an earth still bearing the weight of once graves or ghosts in the form of government sponsored tenement “homes.”
It was a pizza shop that had vegan options for a dollar extra on every otherwise typical pizza shop menu item. I hadn’t planned to stay long but I was hungry and it was hot and somehow this pizza shop with me and two other white dudes behind a counter felt like a refuge.
So. when that man walked in dressed in whatever it was I must have been trying to escape, my stomach caught. he, probably in his early 40s, loudly exchanged hoagie preferences with his phone or someone important I suppose. and then too ordered vegan. I tried not to notice. not see his eyes wonder. nothing malicious really. but as if to say it is so terribly awkward to be two black people in this tiny vegan friendly pizza shop and not talk. exchange something soft.
but i didn’t want to talk to him.
I wanted to sit silently and enjoy a vegan pizza slice in a tiny pizza shop on that nondescript street seemingly untouched by a neighborhood where white people felt safe at all hours of the night.
and this man. early 40s. black. perhaps too noticed my eyes. or rather lack thereof. and. And tried his hardest. he played loudly. on this free arcade machine which somehow also looked untouched by time or latte art. then. finished. grabbed a seat. stared at the wall and then the ground and then even the window until letting his eyes wander back to me. perhaps he hoped I would know that silence is loud when you’re black. too loud, really. perhaps he hoped I would grow weary of this useless charade. pretending him and I weren’t the same. maybe that’s how he knew. he broke whatever invisible yet very real barrier between us casually. as if he didn’t need to.
soooo how’s the pizza? Any good?
Maybe that’s how he knew. i would immediately give in. give up. Exchange a bright smile and say.
yeah it’s good. I would come back here.
as if I hadn’t been using everything in me to hold that invisible barrier up.
So, you from around here? which by the time I said it, both he and I knew sounded more ironic than real. Yeah. Just a couple blocks from here. You?
no not really.
I am pretty new to philly. i mean. my grandma’s from around here. i mean, my mom. grew up here. but I am from jersey. grew up in the suburbs. he looked at me. hesitation.
must have been milliseconds.
but I’m sure. I saw. for a brief moment. rage. or grief. or that ugly rage that ain’t rage at all just shame which don’t have the dignity even for grief no more. gone quick though. so quick if I hadn’t been so sure I might have just doubted I’d seen it at all.
Yeah. not from suburbs. I’m from the hood.
He says the last word slowly. as if it too is tired of zeros. as if it too knows how to fold 100 bodies cold into past tense. He pauses. Or swallows. or something worse again words don’t have the heart for.
changed a lot around here. you know, with gentrification and all. I guess. truthfully. made it a little safer.
He nods. reassuringly. not sure who he hoped to reassure though. then casually. joyfully says.
So, you like it around here?
I am not sure if you can call the way he swallowed whatever it was pain, or pride or rage or desire and then spoke to me as if old friends, talking about his lady friends and niece who is a damn good poet if you asked him, love. or shame. or pity. Or something kinder that too much exposure to manicured lawns will erase.
But perhaps, for the sake of this terrible exercise, you will grant me this terrible lie. and I will write.
A man who survived too many massacres disguised as or worse are… were terrible relief or safe-making machines, loves me who worships at the site of perfect gardens and well paved streets. and someone I love loves someone in the israeli offensive forces. the IOF.
someone I love loves someone on the IDF. someone I love writes fuck the IDF. writes death to israeli offense forces. occupation forces. death-making forces. dignity-stealing forces. writes love letters to a river and a sea which they have never seen. which they might never see. writes elaborate think pieces on instagram stories curled in bed, cursing first a screen, then a stomach. round. too round. making mockery to the twelfth image in 12 minutes their eyes traced with terribly thin lines. a child with a name. that whoever shared it forgot or removed or refused. turned living carcass. made enemy of hunger, unafraid to eat even its own host.
someone I love says it’s all too much. speaks in riddles first. and then finally. tired I suppose. says I just want to live my life. says. or perhaps does not. I am afraid. and yeah. she just drafted into the IDF. says I want safety. in a complex way. says. maybe it’s silly but I don’t think we can be safe without a jewish state. says we need better soldiers. says I have dreams too.
I think of the man in the pizza shop. I think of graves laced between each letter of the word
“ H O O D.”
I think of the queer coffee shop that felt like home. I think of the trees. and the signs that line curated gardens of three-story homes that say, “all are welcome here.”
Someone I love hasn’t slept well in 671 days.
which is to say someone I love. has never slept well. has never truly slept at all. someone I love yells. and I swear it travels across time and space. Or at least I want it too. perhaps this is the scream which broke that fragilely held barrier between him and I in a pizza shop in an once hood on a street still unafraid of itself.
Someone I love makes no sound. just lets the blood spill in anyway it desires. wonders casually how much blood one needs to survive. wonders if anyone grew weary of the trail of red they leave behind. Has decided hemophilia is a livable condition. has to decide to just live their life. red need not be terrible. they can make a life. And they too swallow something. Frightening. too frightening for me to write. and teach the letters
P A L E S T I N I A N
to hold whatever it was that the man from the pizza shop hid in the final syllables of his home.
someone I love loves someone on the IDF. And perhaps you will permit me this terrible lie for the sake of this terrible exercise,
and I will write.
someone I love fears and their fear morphed into genocide. or worse. an afternoon with a man in a pizza shop on a nondescript street somehow untouched by BMWs and block parties that only include the newest neighbors in town who swallowed his whole life down in a single word and I did something worse smiled and laughed and when I finally left turned quickly down the street laced with my favorite garden patch.
Okay. That’s all from me. Hope to see you back in the pink room real again soon…
From the Pink Room 