Stone Soup Servings is a regular series for Oddball Magazine that features upcoming performers at Stone Soup Poetry, the long-running spoken word venue in the Boston area that has partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry now meets from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery’s new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. The open mike sign-up at 6:30 p.m.

On October 17, we are thrilled to have M’shairi’ feature on our stage. Read her sample poem below, and be with us this Monday.

 

Hashtag, You’re It

i don’t sleep much anymore
hours swallow me whole like quicksand
and i lie awake in eric garner’s last words
breathless
and i lie awake hiding in the dark
and i lie awake praying i won’t be next

this is how niggas play hashtag you’re it
hashtag it could’ve been me
hashtag don’t let it be me
let me have tomorrow

my mother did not birth target practice
my existence is no shooting range
my brothers are not empty brown beer
bottles in your twisted western fantasy
you are nobody’s hero

the pavement beneath our feet feels like
they turn into waves when we find ourselves
running from hate, running from bullets
aimed for our minds, our bodies
barrels of guns take us down, sinking us
into soil before our time

who will remember us then, if the living
empty the barrels of their pens in our honor?
ink is not infinite and there are no
breaks in between these slaughters

i haven’t been eating much these days
feels like a trick nourishing a temple
that sits on shaky ground
like a tease maintaining the upkeep for
its inevitable downfall
inevitable either by shots or by sorrow
whichever comes first

they got us playing hashtag you’re it
hashtag another brown body
hashtag R.I.P fill in the blank

the branches in our mothers hearts are
starting to slump like weeping willow trees
the lines on her face tell stories of
nonfiction nightmare and worry
her eyes are silent messengers of the truth,
her tongue bares no witness to it.
what quiet sufferers they’ve become
exhaustion does that y’know

and our children
look what you’ve done to our babies
their halos shapeshift into dark clouds now
they’re running on waves with us now
living in a tamir rice state of mind now

it is only a matter of time before the weight
of this black sadness tornados into black rage
because this poem will never be enough
protesting, rioting will never be enough

we are tired
we are tired
we are so god damn tired

i am hiding behind bushels of misery
seeking shelter in things bigger than myself
covering this body under lake water
shhh..they’re coming

hashtag, you’re it
alton
amadou
eric
freddie
mike
oscar
philando
rekia
sandra
sean
tamir
walter
trayvon
and so on
and so forth
and so on
and so forth
and on
and on
and on
and on..