The Black Christ
a poetic monolog inspired by the writing prompt, “what would Black Jesus say to White Jesus if they found themselves in the same room?”
white boy,
sometimes I feel bad for ya.
They gonna kill something
bloody in your name.
From combat boots
to Calvary,
they took your suffering
to mean, “make more of it.”
Shit, me well…
my manger was the back of a ‘96 Caprice,
with the windows down,
and the blood from a dying man’s bullet-riddled liver
cradled me into living.
You didn’t show up for that brotha.
I did.
I was born on the lipstick residue on a crackpipe in Baltimore.
I was born on the bridge of a prison song.
I was born under a burnt-out streetlamp on Bissonnet — a flickering spotlight in between some sister’s legs who ain’t got no name but for what was done to her.
You didn’t show up after her rape kit.
I did.
And still...
Black folk get to worshippin’ your white ass on them rainbow-washed church windows
and don’t know I’m the son
that carries the bullets back to your father as evidence.
I’m the motherfucker
that walked King to the mountaintop.
You the motherfucker that pushed
him off the edge.
white boy,
you something else.
You fuck up
& continue to let the rich, the racists, and the royals use your likeness
on banner flags,
dripping with their diseases that kill far more niggas
than they have gold to repair.
Meanwhile,
I lay with the Black Madonnas
you make of mothers
whose sons have to hold the line
against all of your mistakes.
I clean up your mess
and your daddy still won’t let me through the front door.
He knows he can kiss my ass.
The celestial bodies weren’t his womb to claim.
That wasn’t his bedroom to be fucking in.
Every time he gets to talking out the
side of his neck,
I have to remind him he ain’t my daddy no way.
He stole from the Goddesses with his alphabet and
continues his thievery with alpha male podcasts that sound like the homoerotic foreplay of the Roman Games.
I’d say Joe Rogan should be ashamed,
but I digress—
or maybe I ain’t.
My name’s only Jesus
because them cats
out in Waller County can’t speak
Amharic.
My name’s only Jesus
because the real one
still a POW
out there in Ofer Prison,
held captive for pushing back the IDF,
RPG in one hand
and the other with a middle finger to the tanks.
He wanted me to tell you that
your talents are worth no more than arid spit.
Only a fool would let corporal punishment become pornography.
The crucifixion has become a lewd scene for
them crackas’ wet dreams when they cum from fantasies of power
& subjugation.
A crucifix as a pendant might as well be a hanging noose as a wedding ring.
And I swear the only time I seen niggas in Heaven was in the kitchen, waiting to serve up a meal to your attendants: Azrael, Ariel, Barachael.
But no one ever believes me
when I say being made
in your daddy’s image ain’t a good thing.
So what does that make you?
I know how my body was quilted—
from the shine of Mutulu Shakur’s acupuncture needles,
the bounce of Larry Levan’s turntable, the grinding of Lamumba’s gold tooth,
and the razer’s edge blessed by the fingers of the Negro Barber in Suez.
I am tired of your perversions
and your flags
and every pyramid built at Abu Ghraib in your name.
I am tired of how useless you really are.
Without you, I’m sure they’d resurrect Hercules
to lynch me in the name of Zeus.
And only I know that the thirteen labors
were performed by a Senegalese wrestler
because I am his swagger.
You are your daddy’s son.
Your blessings—the grin of slavers,
& the spectacle of thieves.
Oh, how I wish Saul would have been devoured
by a crab spider on the road to Damascus,
but again, they only kill in your name.
You are not their bread.
If not Jesus,
they’d pillage in the name of Jupiter,
Thor, or
hell, even Ronald Fucking McDonald would do
to sell their culling as a calling.
And I still clean up your mess
until my people clean my body clean of the contradiction,
because certainly, I am no Nigger Christ.
Though I am nigga needs.
I hope you heard me right, white boy.
I ain’t no Nigger Christ,
but I am nigga needs,
and niggas need you to get the fuck on.