Every Ni*** Is A Star

Every Ni*** Is A Star

“Oh cool, so is that flag one your fave?” I don’t get this back home. Usually the ink on my arm, on his wrist, her legs, our necks and calves and breasts, is a simple truth we hold self-evident. If I told you all the Black folks from my city have this tattoo, or the one that is NOT the Walgreens logo, it would probably be an undercount. And yet, here, I can’t count the number of times that my skin’s “THREE STARS, TWO BARS, AYYY'' was met with blank stares and indifferent silence. If I tell you that Every Nigga Is Not Just One Star, But Three, and I underline that with two wet  gashes along my forearm, then why would I lie? If I told you that all those bright shiny balls of gas now lived in Prince George’s or Montgomery counties, or Bowie, or that they burned out, still with these shapes stamped on them and all their moes, and you disagreed? I’d say we’re self-fulfilling in our truth, and assume you among those who scoped us from a distance and cratered different flags in our split rock. Maybe we did this, communicated but unsaid, forever knowing what would happen, and we beat you to the border. We found home only in our Black flesh, and in that incorrigible terrain found lines of demarcation kind to us.