They Will Come For You

A Poem from Collard Lessons

I am exhausted from living in these infuriating times. To be frank, these days, I am disgusted with most people, institutions, & everything I thought I once desired. While this used to frustrate me, losing all that I thought I was working towards, I am practicing being much more gentler with myself.

There is no roadmap on how to live through what we are witnessing: a pandemic, multiple genocides, a housing crisis spurred by Wall Street prioritizing profit over people, & more.

I have written a poem to share with you below. Before reading it to you, I wanted to amplify a beautiful offer I came across after subscribing to

The Painted Veil

by Palestinian & Guatemalan writer

Leila Haseba Shaban

. Weeks ago, I used passports as source material for my exploration of Black Mobility: Gathering Sites in Hopes of Honoring Self. Therefore, when I read that Leila contributed to a limited edition Palestinean Anthology entitled Passport of Witness I was immediately moved & honored to have unknowingly colectivley been thinking of how to disturb the governmental document.

The methodology of this anthology echoes & reverberates in my own practice & is handmade for your hands. Within A Palestinian Anthology & Personal Plea 🙏🏼, Leila described the anthology as being “more than a passport: it’s a portal, a prayer, a personal artifact.” The full project description is ekphrastic & expresses in essence what Assemblage is about. Passport of Witness reminds readers what liberation we are fighting for & excavates stories of home. An excerpt of the description is below.

“Passport of Witness" is a tribute to the enduring spirit of Palestine and its people. Despite exile and diaspora, the bond between the land and its people remains unbreakable. This limited-edition anthology, meticulously hand-crafted with immense love, stands as a precious collector's item, a testament to the idea of Homeland. Designed to resemble a passport, it both mirrors and subverts the traditional concept, offering a portal to a homeland that thrives in memory, blood, and dreams.

Featuring the vital voices of Palestinians living in the diaspora, this small but mighty passport carries seeds of connection to the Palestine of past, present, and future.

To receive this portal, prayer, & personal artifact click this website & scroll for steps on how to purchase through a donation of $60-$120 to organizations providing aid for Palestinians. Additionally, Leila’s post also shares how almost all of her paternal family lives in Gaza. Please read Leila’s post to learn more about their family & if you can not afford to donate to receive the Passport of Witness, then consider donating what you can to Leila’s family’s GoFundMe.

Lastly, keep looking to the Poets & refer to the post that launched Assemblage: Baby’s Breath at the start of October 2023 entitled I Look to the Poets. In this piece, you can take note of the Poets I continue returning to day after day always with Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, Tigray, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, & the names of lands that hold equal weight whom I am unaware of at present. However, I trust that when spoken to me for the first time, I will be moved to say their names as a result of my freedom craving palate already recognizing the taste.

Here is my offer to you. In this poem I’m thinking/sitting with the disappointing lack of critique around people with a surplus of capital (especially marginalized & Black folk), I’m thinking of those same people using money as protection, I’m thinking of celebrities invoking brave Poets who would laugh at their non-existent effort to “reflect the times,” I’m thinking of so many marginalized folks who believe chasing green will be the way out they always wanted, I’m thinking of how earning collard green dollars does not automatically equate to liberation. I’m exploring the vitamin-rich green that when chased & overworked, by overworked people, ends up reflecting the color & violence of the state.

Here is a poem of rageful embodiment in the world we are navigating & critique of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (bell hooks) nourished by lessons from my Grandma’s collard greens after a Sunday dinner.

Southeast Missouri Farms. FSA (Farm Security Administration) clients preparing greens for canning photographed by Russell Lee in May of 1938 in Madrid County Missouri. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.

They will come for you,
on the mountain or in the valley
with a collard green dollar or a bushel of billions.
They will come for you
& stew you down into nothing—
mush you &
leave you with all your ham hock joints 
exposed,
surrounded by the ribboned greens you chased &
fiercely protected.

The pot has been whistling,
a siren
of an all too familiar tune.

They will come for you 
& your reliance on order you cosplay as ritualistic steps,
as Grandma’s you’ll know whens,
they will leave you depleted of spring vibrancy 
Collard turned kelly green 
will leave you overcooked.

Please remember if you choose to quote this piece, share this piece, or any piece on this publication to always CITE BLACK WOMEN. Please always include my name (Kay Brown she/her pronouns) and a link to the publication of the Assemblage: Baby’s Breath substack in your sharing practice.

To further support my writing practice, receive additional offerings that connect to my pieces, & be the first to hear about other ways to engage in the theory of Assemblage, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Soon I will invite fellow unruly folks to practice gathering & honoring with me in a generous clearing ✨. Stay tuned for updates!

Lastly, remember, that referrals are now available! This means you get to speak the name Assemblage: Baby’s Breath out loud to your community while receiving unique grounded gathered gifts from me. Thank you for being here 💙.