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  • When Being Pulled Up On by a DL Black Man
  • Jari Bradley (bio)

make sure to roll your shoulders to slump.recall the practice of churning the roughhoney in your throat to salt. do not winceat the way your body knows to undo its silk,deconstructs its softness and renders its fleshto harden.

when he slows to roll down his windowto ask if he’s seen you before, kick upthe gravel in your gut, respond with “nah”all grained and guttural. resist the breakin your voice, the tender chords sandpaperedto rasp on que.

flash back to the televisedfists swinging into flesh,the way the punchesstuck sweet into the skin. how uncleheld out his hand, how my knucklesturned to hard candy inside his palm.how to be a man he said was to neverbe broken, but to break. flash backto me dousing myself in his cologne,trying on his boxing gloves, backto me swinging at my dresses throughgritted teeth, how this I thoughtwas adequate training in the waysto never break. [End Page 592]

when he proceeds to ask the question:“so like … what you into?” the lettersL-G-B-T-Q clumsy on his tongue,allow a tinge of relief to wash overyou. Praise your rust. Praise your forcedgrit in the midst of him spelling outa welcome mat. Meet him in the middle,say you “all about that, so wassup?”still not sure, still not fully knowingmuch outside of the promise of nothaving the pink of you pummeled topavement as being the way he discoversyou’re soft.

flash back to the men who looked pastthe hairs on your chin, fixated on your jeansand smiled at its missing print. how those same menheld their dicks offering to “take you somewhereright, now,” how when you told your uncle thishe responded “you should be glad any man is looking”

maybe this is why when he asks for your numberyou give it to him. maybe this is why, when he givesthe head nod, a signal to get in his car, you feel theword before you say it, how the “No” starts in yourfeet, travels up your weary throat, how “No” stumblesout of your mouth.

When your phone rings, you do notexpect him hard and sweet, meltingin his hand when he asks if you’re busy.when he tells you how bad he wanted toundo his silk in front of you, how badhe wanted to place a rough honeyon your tongue, your body can’thelp but deconstruct, renderingyour hardened flesh back to its softness. [End Page 593] to be black in this country means youcan never be soft, means you can never breakto be black and masculine means you must lovein the dark, means you must bleed in broad daylightor in the dead of night, to be black and masculineand queer in this country means you will break wellbefore you will love, to be black here in this bodymeans you try and hold it alltry and hold the gunfire, the smoke,the bullets, the body left limp, the non indictments,the no guilty verdicts, the history of lynchings and slaveryall inside yourself without ever once asking to be held.it is to want to be soft but knowingthat all you will ever be granted in this life is a rough honey,is a body that must learn to remain hard, even in its attemptto love because even that, even the call to one another inthe dead of night praying for the chance to breathe insidethe mouth of one another is a last ditch effort at resurrection. [End Page 594]

Jari Bradley

JARI BRADLEY, a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop Fellow, is studying for an MA degree in ethnic studies at San Francisco State University.

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