“When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Martyr”

is surely a peculiar answer for any teacher to receive when

asking a kindergartner, but on second take, what word best

describes me, crossbreed of butterfly and Super Fly aesthetics,

other than peculiar? I suppose calling me a keen kid would

also suffice in explaining my avidity for the kind of death that

progresses the narrative of a gentling history, because that’s

the only frame for greatness I seem to find for boys my shade

and age to aspire to, short of having the height and hops to

touch the rim, or the bulk and burst to break through the

defensive line like a bullet.

And, no, I haven’t given up

on the prospect of Bulls starting shooting guard yet, but

the God-fearer impressed upon me begs the mythology of

goodness delivered to the multitudes like loaves and fish;

how King is talked about in a black Christian tradition still

in mourning over his lost rays of light, the way mentioning

the name of Malcolm makes mice of shady white men some

thirty years after the shotgun and he’s sung of as a prince:

I want to evoke that level of pride in American democracy’s

dark downtrodden because I know what it invokes in me,

young and impressionable, watching Denzel’s mimicry

for the one millionth time in my abbreviated existence — 

drawing an X on my undeveloped chest, pushing it out

into the unknown-ahead hoping a Mecca for melanin rises

from the man-shaped hole I’d left in my loved ones’ lives.

I bet my parents would be so proud of me.

I bet post offices would close on my birthday.

I bet God would dap me up

when I got up there and Jesus — 

dying on a cross to meet me.