Poverty Lawyer You Want to Speak of Terror?

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Terror is leadership: the falling
out of the plane
when you are midair, you wonder
did I sign up for this?
when you are about to hit the ?--
parachute or not--
you see
whether you made the right choice

you knew for a while it would be this,
you smelled it from afar: the fear
you were called to it by such bodies, Black ones
after colonial wars
they were the wrong bodies, that much was clear,
dead as they were in the rivers. Many of them.
This is not the solidarity you hope for.
Though that is how we all end: back to sea, back to Earth.

Terror is poverty, empty bellies stalking sleepless nights.
Terror is nothing ever smells right, because all the alerts
flash at once
Albert's story is not mine to tell. Though I fear if I don't
no one will know it.

He too was dead by the end, on the streets of a city.
Can you hear the lament? this man who gave me his trust.
And he died in the same way his fate foretold when we met,
to my deepest regret. I failed him. We all did.

I got him SSI. It was hard. Albert's head, which was beautiful
because he was a human
because he told me precisely the truth
those locks of honest hair
where he had been kissed by his wife, gripping as she does the papers she brings
for my "learned" eyes
was indented by his father's hammer, in his father's hand;
the divot--alltheseyearslater--was easy to see. His wife made it clear
when he only said it with his eyes:
he is very disabled. He really needs this help. His eyes
said You have no fucking idea.

The worst part is, I got him the help. I did
that. I fought for him and won.
It might have saved his life?
Albert died on the streets. Young. So all of us lost.

I managed to forget most of them, you know. To my shame.
Most of them were too blinding, especially cumulative,
in that long queue out the door,
in their honesty,
survival craft,
the wisdom of what others know,
the fact of their continued existence,
for my dark mind to preserve.
They deserved better. Even when we won.
From all of us. I/we owe them more. Our neighbors.

Albert was a man walking in terror. His lungs didn't much work. He had other things,
scary ones, hurting, haunting, his body. Diseases. Despair. Seizures. His dad's hammer.
Hunger.

Albert was afraid of himself. How did I come to this?

Albert was a hero. Albert was alive.
Albert made me want to cry.
Albert made me laugh. Albert was good people.
His wife made me want to be brave.
I met Albert, alive.
By the time he left this place, the city, Golden State, where the streetlights end,
he was dead.

Terror is a person like Albert beginning and ending
those ways. Those dark alleys. He was so beautiful, alive.
Terror is thousands of dollars of trauma
therapy for yourself, so that you can tell this very story,
knowing that OR that money could keep
the next Albert alive.

Terror is what you feel
when you realize
you like pretty things
and so many Alberts

Terror is your government
will torture Arab(-seeming?) people
before asking whether
it might be
the wrong thing to do
-or immigrants
-or that stranger over there
-or whomever the file is on
-because ignorance becomes malice
in that way that we do

Terror is a rich grinning man with a chainsaw
choosing who lives and who dies
and the people who keep cheering him on
Did you see them?
What did you do?

Terror is that steady stream of Black people
and brown people
and disabled people
and poor people, so many poor people
walking into your office
to tell you how they have had to learn
how to survive
White supremacist police
and their equivalent in any direction
where power thinks it can squat
The same waters of survival stream out of your office
having enlisted you
having taught you
what beauty is
having taken you to rivers of so many kinds, the wilder
the better, before hitting the Earth, parachute or not
and you could have gone your whole life
and not known
any of this

I will tell you about terror.
I will tell you about walking down streets where you
can hear the abuse, every block
and much of it not even
directed at you
and when the last man who raised his hand to strike you
liked your defiance
so didn't
you learned
what might work
until it kills you some day

Terror is walking barefoot
the perfect, delectable earth
every way that you can
which is
Californian
which is
peculiar
which is painful
which is too raw to survive
which is mostly
through the paths of your heart
which is mostly
sick in bed

Terror is
your hometown burned down
and the whole world watched
and somehow this story is yours

Terror is looking at your kin
and the fairness of our skin
and thinking:
do they actually think killing someone, anyone,
body or soul
is a good idea, ever?!?

Terror is knowing you are one medical bill away
from Albert's fate.
Terror is not saying goodbye.

the way he said thank you and all I had was sorry

Terror is alone.
Solidarity is freedom.