Jordan Bailey – Introduction [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Jordan Bailey, performing at Rustbelt 2019 in St. Louis, MO.

About Button:

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:06
So, for those of you who don’t know who I am:
0:10
Hi! My name is Jordan Bailey, and I’m 21 years old.
0:14
I’ve been called a weirdo before,
0:17
but I’m not, though, I’m just young.
0:19
You see, I was born on the edge of Big’s last breath,
0:22
that’s why these lungs always sound like they’re being borrowed,
0:25
or like I’m a slit wrist away from martyrdom.
0:27
I suffer from bipolar depression.
0:29
So, most days, my mother pretends like she’s not watching me,
0:32
and I pretend like living doesn’t hurt so much.
0:35
We’re real good at pretending.
0:36
I was raised on the art of lying.
0:38
I used to want to be an actor,
0:39
but I got too good at convincing the mirror that I was happy.
0:42
I used to want to be a singer too.
0:43
Like, listen.
0:44
♪ I know you’re scared ♪
0:47
♪ Well, you should ask me if I’m scared too ♪
0:50
♪ ‘Cause if you was here ♪
0:53
♪ Well, we just knew you cared too ♪
0:56
See, I was never really good at it.
0:58
But that’s Asante’s favorite song,
0:59
and we used to sing it every day on our way to class.
1:02
Asante was my best friend.
1:04
We suffered from the same symptoms.
1:06
I didn’t realize it until I read his obituary, though.
1:09
Most days I mourn him;
1:11
others, I try to make a home out of his coffin.
1:13
Lately, I’m a getting real envious of his freedom.
1:16
Like, if you look behind me,
1:18
you’ll catch homeboy cutting cartwheels all throughout this poem.
1:20
I’ve always been envious of the freedom death gives us,
1:23
like when I was little, I was told to stuff my holy into mason jars,
1:27
hide them at the top shelf for those who deem my glow defect.
1:29
So since we got a chance to know each other a little better,
1:32
can I tell y’all a secret?
1:34
I have been deemed a medical anomaly.
1:37
You know how this Black do crack,
1:40
yet still be too immortal to die.
1:42
I got a secret y’all.
1:44
Black boys like me be a dime a dozen,
1:46
how we be blessed to make it through September
1:48
without bullet wound souvenirs.
1:50
You know, ’cause everybody dies in the summer,
1:53
yet, somehow, we stay so casket pretty,
1:55
we’d be picture-perfect poltergeists ’cause we know our fate.
1:59
We know that Black boys are already birthed into body bags,
2:02
but nobody said we will spend our entire lives
2:05
trying not to zip them up on ourselves,
2:07
that mental illness be the best-kept secret
2:09
tucked under this melanin skin,
2:11
that Asante wouldn’t make it to 19
2:14
because nobody wanted to talk about it.
2:15
Like maybe the stereotype of Black men not being able to swim
2:19
comes from the fact that we are forced to drown in our sorrows,
2:21
like their direct pipeline between substance abuse and depression.
2:25
Years of oppression and forced silence makes for the perfect–
2:28
Hey, did y’all just hear something?
2:29
It just sounded like another name, of another martyr in another war
2:32
that nobody cared we was fighting.
2:34
By the end of this poem they’d be 1,196 more just like ’em.
2:38
See, hey, he’s so weird,
2:40
just another Black boy they chose noose knots over four or five clips.
2:43
Ain’t no way I’m making to four or five shit.
2:45
I’d be blessed if I make it to 22, right?
2:47
‘Cause I’m 21, and I already feel like I’m living on borrowed time.
2:50
♪ I know you’re scared ♪
2:54
♪ But you should ask me if I’m scared too ♪
2:57
♪ I know you’re scared ♪
3:00
Me too.
3:01
(applause and cheers)

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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