Please kill the state without me
after Danez Smith
The last gasps of the Obama era were defined by sinking realizations. Millions believed the election of a black man represented a permanent sea change in this country’s history, a sign that the American Dream and its concordant, long-repressed opportunities were finally being made available to all. It was easy to be seduced by this belief as it satisfied long-held priors, the vision of America almost all of us were taught during our formative years.
That hopeful, not-quite-benevolent-but-not-far-off-it America was certainly the one I was taught in school. But hope was ultimately short lived, and it came with a vicious backlash.
So back in 2016, a lot of people were waking up to a country they didn’t recognize, or one they were being forced to contend with all over again after years of reprieve. This whiplash was hard to bear. Of course, none of this is revelatory, but as this country showed its teeth, showed who it really always was, it’s worth noting that such difficulty made for some great art.
One of my favorite examples is this 2016 poem written by Danez Smith, which begins by rejecting their country, then leans into the almost-hope of imagining a better one before ultimately undercutting that reverie. It’s brilliant.
So good, right? So good that when I rediscovered it last week, I felt compelled to write an after poem, wanted to curate my own list of probably-futile aspirations for this country and uncover my own subversion of those dreams.
I tried to write just such a poem, though in 2024 there’s no state left within to kill, so the piece veered in a slightly different direction. I hope you like it.
Please kill the state without me after Danez Smith The state within me is already dead, been dead for a long time: I was raised to trust my light pockets, how they spoke this country’s indifference into materiality, a buoyancy purchased with its apathy, how I would never be weighed down by the responsibilities of gold or the onus of owing them shit; a reflex born without words or permission, I knew I had too little to be worth their while. Waning into the smooth noise of worn-down tires, my drive to get more from this country is still curbed by what I haven’t had, like it’s a been blessing to keep dissolving into the republic’s blind spots, to work three jobs and earn just enough to afford complaint. You know I’ve got some affection for my want. So a cry turns to lilt in your ears, a song embellished with the cadence of virtuous struggle until it’s unrecognizable as pain measured against profit, pain taken out on credit, borrowed against someone else’s nationhood. See, that’s the price of your idle patriotism, your belief this place could become something greater if we just let it: your neighbor’s loss, a stranger’s dead, slowly forgetting you invested in wreckage. This is the only country I’ve got so I made it home, but of course I want one that doesn’t stand for all that, which means I want a country that doesn’t stand. I’ve done my part, never trusting in this dreadful land, telling everyone I can what it’s always been. Now you born with the heavy pockets, you raised to believe in your own future, you with the power: please kill the state without me.