Corey and I moved to a different apartment; this one in the Quarter. We were both acutely aware of being watched. Some nights we talked or argued when we could not avoid it.
“Kalo, don’t worry about her. She’s…come on…she thought she would help me out.”
“Yeah, why? Help you out…so you weren’t with her that night?”
“I was in the bed with you that night, remember?”
“It was late when you came in.”
“It was.” Corey conceded into the darkness between us.
We were quiet again and watched a documentary about the Panthers, COINTELPRO, and how once the drugs pumped in, and the freedom fighters were exiled, neutralized, or dead; capitalism killed the revolution. A lot of people died before it was their time, had their potentiality stolen.
There could be no way to know what this world had in store for you, but in that moment I recognized, like those in the movie, many people I loved died young.
Afterward , the local news droned on in the soft glow of the bedroom. I was barely awake, but heard the weather girl through my shut eyes. There was a storm brewing out in the Gulf. A big one. Corey kissed me on my eyelids, like he always did before bed. Grateful for his return, and eager to forget what had brought him back to me— I wrapped my arms around his solid mass, and dreamt that he would live to be an old man.
Kristina Kay Robinson 