The pronouns I love to bear

If I'm walking past you on a Broadway, I wonder what you think of me, what first crosses your mind. “That girl” "she" “her" but I know you won't even wait to hear my name, you are perhaps scared of yourself, or I am the one scared to identify myself that I pass you by without saying hello. In Facebook videos, I've seen coffee shops ask " what is your name" and print it on cups, don't blame me, where I'm from, we don't have cafes everywhere only markets, noise, clothes hanging on a line, hawkers, a saddist TV, wild music, prayers, churches and God up there. Lately, I think I like this place “for now at least”. Again I'm passing by you on a Broadway and I know you can't read my mind because I'm invisible to you and I admit, you are invisible too, not because of a damaged ectoplasm but of the state of your mind. I'd do you a favor, I call you I say “fellow human” come, read the newspaper with me. You wouldn't even wait. Why? You don't believe the paint is wet until it suckles your footwear. A little girl passes, a feather stuck in her hat, thick brown shoes and a flower in her hand and she walked and skipped slightly in a way that seemed like she almost jumped one leg raised far from the ground before she lifts the other. Her collar bone sculpted a little from her neck, and her skin was a pale black- brown or brown I should say. When she reached a top the bridge (there was a bridge I've told the passers by many times but only a plain road did they see.) I stood up and followed her, my heart thumping like the setting red, plum- yellow colored sun sky. I saw her hold the flower, the yellow chrysanthemum in her hand and toss it in the sea beneath. I paused, looked down and waited to see if it shall float when she looked at me and began cursing, her lips forming a letter O and flattening up over over until she reached me and beat me (I'm embarrassed by this trance) “get away from me human" she said repeatedly. I saw her face closely, she was in the newspaper.

A man a little distance away from me called the police and reported my disordered behavior. He should have known better, ain't my fault he couldn't see. I wanted to stand up and find a place away from him but my legs felt heavy and I saw the bridge again, this time,they were many say, close to a thousand girls, boys, (trust me they were faceless) their skin colourless each climbing onto a pavement and dropping themselves down into the sea beneath and yes, they didn't float. I heard a siren and a woman yelling in my face saying I'm trying to rob her, I looked at her bag, there were only pineapples, why shall I steal pineapples? The police came and I waved the one last boy about to jump goodbye, he didn't see me,I know. I was pushed towards the van and made to seat beside a police man smelling like onions, stale onions. He looked at me like he wanted me to say something. I was in a trance, I told him, he looked out the window as if he heard nothing and used his finger to clean the spit by his lips. “Didn't you hear me?" I asked him this time I was tempted to shake him vigorously. “It's my job to arrest you, not to have a picnic discussion so shut up!" He blew his odored breath in my face. "Did you see a bridge when you came to arrest me? I asked him. “This lady's crazy he voiced to his colleagues in the front seat" I was silent…

After a few months, I'm out of prison and the bridge is still there. I pass by you and I ask your name, you say you don't know, and call me a stranger. I am not a stranger darling, you don't see you're putting a bridge between our souls. I'm you. We share the sun, and the moon, oxygen and death, trees and soil upon which we both bare our feet, Gwendolyn Brooks would say “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. If you'd love to call by any pronoun call me “fellow human" 

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