jean

on Black Americana, on "genes", on denim, on Blue

“JEAN”

as in jean. as in Canadian tuxedo. Daun arrives Canadian tuxedo. Daun arrives new glue. Daun arrives as brothers should. As in Jean Petra; the mother of my husband.

As in “gene”: my original major was microbiology; I fell in love with reducing; with zooming in; was amazed that they split atoms at Princeton University. The cells wiggled cutely under microscopes. I began to draw cells that didn’t exist yet. Modeled after Rodell. I gave them speech bubbles. Their problems were local:

“I taste like chocolate when you haven’t had chocolate in a year.” “I’ve lost my sweet tooth.”;

As in “Elektra complex” as in “incest” is not a dirty word; as in Oldboy (2003); as in orphaned from both sides; as in “denim” as in “America” as in USA! USA! as in the flag; as in a White woman wearing a cut-out flag shirt on Independence Day with her skin starring as the stars & stripes; as in Sydney Sweeney’s jeans; as in eugenics; as in Raven Symone: “When I say that ‘African-American’ doesn’t align with me, that label, it doesn’t mean that I’m negating my Blackness or I’m not Black. It means I am from this country. I was born here.”; to which I say; “me too”; I am American because of circumstance; as in genes; as in Africa, yes but Black American means something else; “denim” as in “threads”; “threads” as in red strings on a murder mystery board as in Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; threads as in connections; think the L Word Map; as in loving connections; as in braiding; as in Kanekalon; as in fuck the nuclear family; as in braids; as in you pick the blend; I pick the blend; & I choose to imagine a family; where a baby has seven parents; where we pour into Baby like Photoshop paint tool; thread as in “gossamer” and how gossamer all of this is; “denim” as in “Blue” as in Ecco2k’s “Blue Eyes”; where he proclaims all his friends got blue eyes; is this commentary on his European upbringing? does he mean the zombie blue of a corpse? is it because of drugs galore? “Blue” as in recessiveness; as in “Whiteness” as in Simpson blue skies.

“Blue” as in Kali, as in the darkest mother there is.