Featured Poet: Kellen Gaither (2021)

by Kellen Gaither

I can still feel the pain and anguish that my ancestors had.
My adrenaline heightens and my blood turns cold
as I am reminded of what they went through.
My gums throb and swell every time I think of my ancestors
having their teeth ripped from their skulls for disobeying.
My back arches inhumanely when I recall my ancestors
being tied to wooden posts and whipped
until the white meat of their backs was visible.
My neck throbs and my wrists feel heavy
when I see pictures of Africans in chains escorted onto slave ships.
Chills go up my spine and my cheeks go red
with shame and embarrassment when I remember
that we were left naked when people auctioned off our souls.
My eyes fill with tears and I can’t hold back a longing wail
when I think of a mother being separated from her children
to work for another plantation.
My toes curl when I recall my ancestors getting their feet cut off
for trying to run to freedom.
My fingers shake as I skim the pages of my college textbook,
knowing that my people were once killed for doing the same thing.
I can feel it.
I can still feel the pain and anguish my people go through.
My adrenaline heightens and my blood turns cold
as I witness my people’s hardships.
My throat throbs and swells as I yell,
parading through the streets to demand equality for my people.
My back arches inhumanely when a thirteen-foot fire hose is blasted on me.
My neck throbs and my wrists feel heavy when I see African Americans
paraded into jail cells over crimes like shoplifting snacks and a gram of weed.
Chills go up my spine and my cheeks go red with embarrassment
when I see my people trying to explain to other races
why ‘nigga’ should not be in their vocabulary.
My eyes fill with tears and I can’t hold back a longing wail
when I see a mother, a sister, a daughter hovering over a dead body,
his hairbrush not too far from his limp hand.
My toes curl as the police threaten my people with dogs and tasers
when they don’t get to the ground fast enough.
My fingers shake as I pull my car over to the side of the road,
quick to turn down my music and present my hands on the dashboard,
silently praying that I make it out alive.
My God, why must I feel this way?
Me, my people, we just want freedom.
We want the next generation to feel—
to feel love, happiness, strength.
So I hope and I pray when it’s their turn, they can feel too.

Kellen Gaither – 2021 Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Beautiful Black Boy, Businessman, Cantu Bantu, The Hood Isn’t Even Ours Anymore, Not Allowed to Hurt, The Talk

by Kellen Gaither

I was born with a red X on my back.
When I opened my eyes for the first time,
I was convicted of a crime I had yet to commit.
I grew to fit the stereotypical mold and when I broke out of that mold,
I was told to fall back in line,
back in line with the convicts, and the drug dealers,
and the baby mamas, and the Black people who live
where the rats and cockroaches have their young.
I am young,
yet my future is already determined
not by God or Allah but by the society I never asked to be a part of.
I am set apart from my white peers
who spend their weekends with palm trees and sand.
I am inside with the palms of my hands on the table,
fingers spread, chin up, music down, license out.
Don’t fight, don’t move,
they’ll get scared,
don’t talk back, don’t look around.
The trained professionals will get scared.
They’ll react,
you shouldn’t.
My mom sits across from me, and I can tell she’s fighting back tears.
I don’t understand.
I’m only sixteen, just got my license today but I don’t understand.
She tells me, “Baby girl, it’s bound to happen. You just have to know what to do—”
I ask, “But what if I did nothing wrong?”
I am interrupted. She tells me,
“That doesn’t matter, just remember what I tell you now.”
I was born with a red X on my back.
My face is too threatening,
my skin is too dark for comfort,
my voice is too strong, and it scares them.

Kellen Gaither – Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Beautiful Black Boy, Businessman, Cantu Bantu, The Hood Isn’t Even Ours Anymore, I Can Feel It, Not Allowed to Hurt

by Kellen Gaither

According to most people, I am not allowed to hurt.
Black people are supposed to feel the least amount of pain
because they have “assimilated” to the mistreatment they faced—
faced, past tense.
I am no longer allowed to grieve for the people who came before me in chains,
covered in their own feces.
I cannot hurt because it happened over 400 years ago
so I should just get over it.
I am not allowed to feel anguish for my 62-year-old mother
who was told that Blacks had to come in through the back in order to be served
or for my 65-year-old father who had to read a middle school book
with missing pages and outdated information
because it didn’t happen to me.
I am not allowed to feel worried when my 18-year-old brother walks out of the house
with a hoodie on because the thought of him being killed by a cop is “dramatic.”
He's not Terrance Franklin, after all,
he isn’t William Green,
he isn’t Kwame Jones,
he’s just an unarmed Black boy, so why be afraid?
I’m not allowed to feel anxiety when I go into a job interview
that I won’t be hired, not because I’m not qualified,
But because of my natural hair, my skin color, or my Ebonics.
Pain is something I’m never allowed to feel
because it was all in the past—
 
right?

Kellen Gaither – 2021 Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Beautiful Black Boy, Businessman, Cantu Bantu, The Hood Isn’t Even Ours Anymore, I Can Feel It, The Talk

by Kellen Gaither

We’re lost
we have no home
outsiders wherever we go.
America thinks we’re too African
Africa thinks we’re too American.
Where do we go?
To our ghetto inner cities
safe, familiar, cultured
our corner store, our mom-and-pop shops.
The buildings are run down and filled with graffiti
but they were ours
barbeques in the middle of the potholed roads.
The Wobble brings the neighborhood together
and the block party begins
but not for long.
The corner store is replaced by an art gallery
our beautiful graffiti stripped from the walls of our buildings
and changed into bougie apartments that we can’t afford
potholes only filled when people much whiter and much richer come around
police called when the block party reaches 5 people
the neighbors pushed out of their own hood
becoming lost once again.

Kellen Gaither – 2021 Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Beautiful Black Boy, Businessman, Cantu Bantu, I Can Feel It, Not Allowed to Hurt, The Talk

by Kellen Gaither

Imagine this:
a man,
a businessman,
in the business of finance,
dressed in a navy-blue suit with his hair freshly touched up and his shoes freshly polished.
The Rolex on his wrist shimmers as he flicks his arm up to tell the time.
It is obvious that he is put together and well-to-do.
He speaks with pristine pronunciation
and even if no one fully understands the big, intelligent words flowing from his lips,
no one wants him to stop talking.
His smile is as white and as straight as America.
He goes home to a four-bedroom home, a loving wife, and a bright child.
Dinner is prepared by his personal chef and his home is kept in tip-top shape by his maids.
 
Now imagine this:
a man,
a businessman,
in the business of weed.
Grey sweatpants and an old T-shirt adorn him
with a snapback to cover his messy hair.
The watch on his wrist isn’t a Rolex
but his main chick got it for him,
so he wears it hesitantly.
He’s not well put together, and his finances could be better.
His words mostly consist of slang, mumbled and unclear,
but that doesn’t stop him from talking.
He never got braces to fix his teeth and figured that a grown man
walking around with braces wouldn’t sit right with the ladies.
He goes home to a shabby apartment that has stains on the wall and dishes in the sink.
His main chick comes out with his baby on her hip,
yelling at him about who he was cheating on her with.
 
Now, my final question to you is:
What race was each man?

Kellen Gaither – 2021 Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Beautiful Black Boy, Cantu Bantu, The Hood Isn’t Even Ours Anymore, I Can Feel It, Not Allowed to Hurt, The Talk

By Kellen Gaither

Beautiful black boy
I wish you saw what I did.
I wish you saw how your chocolate skin radiates in the bright sunlight
and how your curls define themselves
and how your smile can bring the sun from behind the heaviest cloud.
I wish you saw how people’s faces light up when I mention your name
and how they throw compliments on you like daisies in a field.
My soft, beautiful boy,
you’re beautiful, boy
elegant and radiant, boy.
I want you to feel nothing but joy,
happiness away from the anxiety and toxicity
and inconsistency.
Just stick with me,
I’ve got you
through the hardships and the self-doubt.
You’ve got me
through the inner screams and shouts.
We’ve got each other
and our lives will turn around
because we’re beautiful, black boy.

Kellen Gaither – 2021 Featured Poet – is a junior from Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a psychology major with a minor in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies who is also working on her prerequisites for occupational therapy. Businessman, Cantu Bantu, The Hood Isn’t Even Ours Anymore, I Can Feel It, Not Allowed to Hurt, The Talk