Let's kick off the dust and trust that we
can keep this contained, let's
open up
a new chapter; the page only turns left. Look back and see black, listen to
the hollow depths in a loop, tie it like
a shoelace, keep it in place for
the night. I promise this will only last
one night. When you start, there is
no stop, no red; let's establish that
there's no whiteout; black and blue, our
palette, the ink to document
and label; it smears but never erases; it
defines, like the lines on a street, aged with
the concrete. Your name is on
the document, our name is in the file; we can
no longer claim to bathe, our record is
no longer clean, we can
set it aside but never remove; the file
collects labels like vacuums collect
dust: hungry for reaction for a fraction of
the effort, unplugged only until it
spots a speck of dust, or the smog
we created, an invisible field of dust
we birthed because we did not vacuum, we
did not understand the longevity of the
black and blue ink on the documents: the labels
permanently marked on our file, an
untouchable file for those who sell
our names and call our names, our labels,
our files as if we were the red ink: a color we
cannot mark; when it starts, there is no ink for us to write, only
the option to ignore the file until
it knocks on our door.