Should I Tell You?
Can I trust you with this knowledge?
I’m a bit frightened to write my heart
now that I know the secret,
as every other living, breathing man
who was foolish enough to share this
attracted the wrong kind of attention
and got themselves violently killed.
Fred Hampton. Bobby Kennedy.
some guy named Jesus, and all the like.
So nah, I won’t tell you the secret,
not outright, not in a “call a spade
a spade” direct kind of way,
but since I’m just Some Drunk Guy On
The Internet, I’ll give you a hint;
You see, we were all doomed
the moment we began naming stuff,
claiming stuff, codifying creeds n’ stuff
twisting ourselves into this, that,
and the other.
Oh, and watch out for
that “other” fellow.
Wanna know why?
Come closer, and I’ll tell you,
and real-talk, I gotta whisper it.
I’m being super bold and reckless
for telling you this, but fuck it,
I’ll be forty-eight next month,
and guys who look like me,
who share my dusky skin-tone,
piecemealed culture, and
slick-as-silk swagger
are typically herded into prison farms
or the grave before our twenty-fourth
birthday, so basically, I’m playing
with house money right now.
Okay, I just took a swig of bourbon
to get my nerve up again. I’m ready.
Are you ready?
Again, it’s only a hint,
so if you don’t get it,
I can’t give you any more.
Alright, the secret is …
The other is a lie.
He is nothing of the sort.
The other is you.
That’s all I can say,
and this ain’t no quantum physics
trick either, where light waves
become particles once observed.
I’ll repeat it once more,
and this time pay attention;
the other is not the other;
she is everything but that;
the other is me.
Oops, I guess I said it
differently that time.
I wonder why?
© BJ Dawson — 2020, 2025, originally published on Medium.
Written on December 4, 2020, the fifty-first anniversary of Fred Hampton’s assassination by the Chicago Police Department and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Oh yeah, and I published a book! What is it about? What an attractive question!