I forgot about all those intro pages.
[LAUGHTER]
Here we are.
And Q-- Including the QR code.
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
"Speculation-- the faculty or power of seeing, vision.
TV-- static TV.
St-- st-- static TV, st-- static TV, static body, static body,
static TV, st-- static TV, static sound, moving sound,
moving no sound.
TV, static body, moving no sound.
There is a dream in which I turn off the news,
yet it follows me.
Through family, lovers, people on the street.
By way of the telephone, the radio,
even the blank screen on the television.
In a song, in a photograph, in the mirror--
that's where I see it the most, in the image staring
right back at me.
It is then, looking into the glass at my own reflection,
that I begin to see myself everywhere.
In store windows, in displays at the mall, in car mirrors.
I bend down, when passing by a vehicle on the street,
just to take a look--
a kind of checking in--
as if to say, yes, that is me walking by.
I am not dead yet.
Another Black man is killed by the police.
I turn off the TV.
I say, I am not dead yet.
Sandra is found in her cell.
I log off the internet.
I say, I am not dead yet.
A child is shot right in front of my house.
I go to sleep shortly after the paramedics arrive, cradle
my head into the soft pillow, and wake
in a pool of my own water.
I say, I am not dead yet.
But it's something like blood.
And I can still hear the sound.
He's dead!
He's dead.
They were all dead.
But I was not dead yet.
People were dying.
And I was alive.
Was that-- was that you on the news?
Was that you?
Was that you on the news?
At a high frequency of sound, there is distortion.
She calls me by my first name.
Sometimes, there is no bullet, no sharp object
that travels through the skin.
Sometimes, death is silence, cushioned into the bone.
I watched the videos over and over.
I read the newspaper.
I sat in front of the TV for hours.
For weeks, I did not close my eyes.
Eric didn't scream as he was pushed to the ground.
It was his body that said stop, said, take your hands off me;
said, I do not belong to you; said,
I can breathe, just not like this.
At night, I sink into my bed and wake up pressed
between my mattress and the floor.
And even that touch starts to feel good.
Sometimes, death is soft, sweet, like a lover,
calls you by your first name, says,
you can always come to me; says, I need you, you love me,
I know you want to touch me, and you ain't never been this close
before.
Body, static body, static body, static sound, on body static,
body, static sound on body, static mirror, calling mirror,
static mirror, calling body on mirror, s-- s-- static body,
static sound on mirror, calling.