Dec 2013
I am not a sentimental man but
I remember the tallness of some relatives ceiling and the lights around the table where they sat.
I remember the other, squat ceiling where we lined up and my grandmother cried and in the next room there was body laid out.
It is 7pm and my uncle is giving me birthday money.
It is 3am and he's screaming, pepper spraying a man in handcuffs.
In the same way I'll walk home and see them waving their nightsticks and the boy on the corner with his head leaking.
I'll take a different route home and forget it by that evening. Later I'll suddenly remember it forever.
But I am not a sentimental man.
I remember the tallness of some relatives ceiling and the lights around the table where they sat.
I remember the other, squat ceiling where we lined up and my grandmother cried and in the next room there was body laid out.
It is 7pm and my uncle is giving me birthday money.
It is 3am and he's screaming, pepper spraying a man in handcuffs.
In the same way I'll walk home and see them waving their nightsticks and the boy on the corner with his head leaking.
I'll take a different route home and forget it by that evening. Later I'll suddenly remember it forever.
But I am not a sentimental man.
