After Kevin Young’s “On Being the Only Black Person at the Johnny Paycheck Concert”
The girl in the Green Day shirt
wants to touch my hair. It looks so soft, she says.
I inch towards a pack of boys
with multi-colored mohawks like mixed drinks
they’re too young to have; a boy briefly looks
at me before returning to his conversation
on how Courtney killed Kurt Cobain.
She’s head of the Illuminati, he says with conviction—
conspiracy theories laid out like a buffet
for his friends to consume.
The merch booth behind me sells band shirts
that are almost antique. Suburban kids
pass gossip around like flavored vape pens
and block the way to the bathroom.
The band enters the stage. The crowd sways,
an ocean of salty skin under a shelter of speakers.
I stand in the back, an outcast,
not old enough to reminisce
when Black rock stars were as common as record players.
When rock ‘n’ roll just meant the blues,
when blues just meant wicked songs
dipped in gospel, when Black was just
the rule to be in rock. I’m just a kid born too Black
to rebel with rap bleeding
from headphones. Too Black
to know Nevermind by heart.
My heart, black and bleeding, ripped
from my body and thrown on stage.
The band throws it to the crowd
saying, I love you all, you’re too kind.
(“You’re too kind” is quoted from the Kevin Young poem, “On Being the Only Black Person at the Johnny Paycheck Concert.”)