{"id":9943,"date":"2020-07-28T01:02:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T01:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/?p=9943"},"modified":"2020-07-28T01:37:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T01:37:12","slug":"turing-test-2-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here, even amongst our own<\/p>\n

Anything you say of depression<\/p>\n

Can be dismissed as Eurocentrism<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the language of all things stereotype<\/p>\n

There are mouths fixing themselves stiff<\/p>\n

They say<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hey black girl with skin dripping melanin<\/p>\n

Where did you get that sad?<\/p>\n

Pouring like tar on everything<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A sticky mess<\/p>\n

What sickness has made your mind home?<\/p>\n

Get up and do something<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you not have food on your table?<\/p>\n

A roof over your head?<\/p>\n

Air in your lungs?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All that greed is what’s driving you crazy<\/p>\n

And craziness is for white people<\/p>\n

With all their unnecessary stuff<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You’re so unnecessary<\/p>\n

So privileged aren’t you?<\/p>\n

You have the white man’s illness?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can you even spell Schizophrenia?<\/p>\n

Who are all the people on your face?<\/p>\n

You are making the gods angry<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are making us angry<\/p>\n

Sing a happy song<\/p>\n

Aren’t you grateful?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They will ask you to gyrate<\/p>\n

To the music of being here<\/p>\n

Like you are so happy to be here<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When black bodies battle mental illness<\/p>\n

Those that cannot see them<\/p>\n

Dismiss them as attention seekers<\/p>\n

Till death comes knocking on our doors<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Defiant Seed<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before we were older and wiser<\/p>\n

Our parents hid our siblings behind houses<\/p>\n

With shackles both of mind and body<\/p>\n

For the way their minds differed from the rest<\/p>\n

Their whole lives draped in a garment of myth<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They said<\/p>\n

Witchcraft; it has to be witchcraft<\/p>\n

How else do you explain<\/p>\n

A grown man unable to navigate<\/p>\n

his existence?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I say, brave hands<\/p>\n

Re-collecting constantly shattering glass<\/p>\n

Shards like diamonds<\/p>\n

Sticking out from his hands<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The glass is his mind<\/p>\n

Something broke in there<\/p>\n

Someone is trying to survive in there<\/p>\n

Someone is alive in there<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They said<\/p>\n

She is a just a bore<\/p>\n

Never wants to leave the house<\/p>\n

Let alone the bed<\/p>\n

They said snob, I say beauty<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you any idea how great a<\/p>\n

company you have to be<\/p>\n

To want to spend all the time<\/p>\n

by yourself?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I heard of a woman who can split into<\/p>\n

Seven different personalities a day<\/p>\n

Each of whom knows of the other like family<\/p>\n

A friend, a parent, an infant<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this is one of the ways the mind<\/p>\n

responds to trauma<\/p>\n

A wound that wouldn’t heal<\/p>\n

So the mind splits into different<\/p>\n

people to share the pain<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trauma<\/p>\n

An unwelcome guest with no etiquette<\/p>\n

So the house that is the mind<\/p>\n

Splits into many different rooms<\/p>\n

To share the discomfort<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had a friend<\/p>\n

Who could paint meticulously<\/p>\n

Could create serenading music for days<\/p>\n

Before other days came<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When even the floor by her bedside<\/p>\n

Forgot the crease of her underfoot<\/p>\n

At the hospital they cleaned out the wound<\/p>\n

Soaked it up in meds and called it bipolar<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It takes twelve years for an OCD patient<\/p>\n

to get proper help<\/p>\n

And even that help costs an arm and a leg<\/p>\n

That there are no misconceptions to house that won\u2019t cost us<\/p>\n

No lame myths to spread that won\u2019t end us<\/p>\n

These are real people with beautiful minds<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With an existence so defiant<\/p>\n

Like seed rejected by the soil<\/p>\n

That grows to be a forest<\/p>\n

Like stars in pitch black darkness<\/p>\n

Refusing to believe that heresy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors   Here, even amongst our own Anything you say of depression Can be dismissed as Eurocentrism   In the language of all things <\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\nTill Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors - Ake Arts & Book Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors - Ake Arts & Book Festival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors   Here, even amongst our own Anything you say of depression Can be dismissed as Eurocentrism   In the language of all things Continue Reading\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ake Arts & Book Festival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-28T01:02:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-28T01:37:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/poetry.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1170\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"webmaster\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@akefestival\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@akefestival\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"webmaster\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"webmaster\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/#\/schema\/person\/6f5dfbebbe1b6f20207b3ac1c4588080\"},\"headline\":\"Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-07-28T01:02:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-28T01:37:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\"},\"wordCount\":583,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/poetry.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Poetry (Ake Review 2019)\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/akefestival.org\/archive\/till-death-comes-knocking-on-our-doors\/\",\"name\":\"Till Death Comes Knocking On Our Doors - 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