The Negroverse Theory
by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola

“I am tired of work; I am tired of building up somebody else’s civilization” – Fenton Johnson

Somewhere in Jerusalem, my mother pulls grains of memory out of the earth. Kingdoms sprout like saplings as she scatters them all over the paved city streets, a forgotten ritual against forgetting. We are only a few limitless sacraments from remembering what we came from. A theory claims that black people come from dirt, from the unwanted sands that built the pyramids. That explains why they walk all over us. That is why they love us till we are antique, beautiful enough to be non-threatening. That is why we are found in every part of the world—on your clothes, in your hair, on your streets, in your mouth, in your face. In Paris, my cousin always says her final goodbyes over text whenever she wants to leave the house: Dem fit come for me anytime. Profile? Drug dealer. Muslim terrorist. Black Jew. Black-black. Disposable. I think they call it meiosis: we are so used to fading that we keep multiplying. Look, another black gone. Look, another black born. Dirt, dirt everywhere. Beauty, beauty everywhere.

Image source: “Common Sense, Common Knowledge and Accountability, “Sister LaTeta, Blog Talk Radio, 2012.

Kanyinsola Olorunnisola is an experimental poet, essayist & writer of fiction. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Popula, Gertrude, On the Seawall, Bodega, Bakwa, Headline, The Account Journal, Gyroscope Review, Bird’s Thumb & elsewhere. His debut chapbook, “In My Country, We’re All Crossdressers”, was published in 2018 by Praxis. He won the 2016 Albert Jungers Poetry Prize and the 2017 Fisayo Soyombo National Essay Prize. He was shortlisted for the 2019 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction. He is the founder of SprinNG, a web-based platform seeking to break the barriers young creators face in the literary community. Say hello.