It started in my Body

A reaction to something she said

‘I only date black men.’

Body flinched

My Mouth betrayed me by staying shut

My Mind rationalized the comment telling me that everyone has a type

But my Brain knew

Because as comments came, my Brain sent signals to my soul

It heightened my nervous system

It warned me that I was unsafe

It told me to fight

But my Mind continued to rationalize

“Be nice.” It said

“She knows no better.”

“She is from Maine.”

But my Brain wasn’t fooled

It began to send needles to my skin every time she said

“We’ll have pretty babies.”

My brain sent alarm bells to my ears when I heard

“Oooh, he’s so light skin.”

My brain sent a bullet to my head when she said

“He isn’t black enough.”

Fight!

My mouth opened

“Black enough?”

I decided to repackage the bullets into soft blows

“You say racist stuff.”

Release.

And for a while my brain rested

But the damage had been done

Because every little thing she did began to annoy me

Her basic roommate idiosyncrasies frustrated me

Her complaints of my “red sauce” from my ethnic food aggravated me

Her nitpickiness got to me

So when she lied on my other roommate’s black brother

And lied to me about it

My Brain finally took over my Mind and Body

Fire!

Blow the Canon

Burn her with your words

Call her out

Don’t let her play you for a fool

So I did

I fought until the fire extinguished

Until my body filled with smoke

And the smoke turned to dust

And the dust cooled

My Brain said

Freeze!

My Mind and Body were frozen

Each little lie she told would bounce off my icy eyes

Each request to wipe off black pepper flakes

I would turn a cold shoulder

But my nervous system is tired of the winter

It needs to be firing and my blood needs to flow warmly and freely

So now my Brain is telling me to leave

But my Mind has resurfaced

“You have financial goals.” It says

“You need a roommate.”

“You don’t want to move again. You may have another crazy roommate.”

“Make it work.”

But my Brain is sending me signals again

But they are weak

If I stay, my nervous system will completely break

I exhausted my flight mechanism

I have cracked my freezing system

My Body can’t take any more

My Brain is telling me that it is time to take Flight