Would You Still Love Me If I Were a Killer?
By Aniyah Coleman
“Hello, you are about to receive a collect call from the Cook County jail. This call is subject to monitoring and recording. To accept this call, please press 1.”
I sit there wondering whether or not I tell you what I did or didn’t eat today
because
I haven’t eaten much or gotten much sleep and
while it isn't your fault
Deep down you know it bothers me
I fiddle with my fingers as I update you on trivial things like
My straight A’s and who my friends are
while the smile in your voice sounds strained and stiff as if
You took a blow to the heart
Because of the words falling from my lips
Jail isn’t the safest place for men like you
You shouldn’t be there
You weren’t selling coke off the corner of Chicago and Hamlin
You weren’t coercing children to come into your apartment
You weren’t the type of man to do something this stupid so late into life
You could’ve had a wife
You have a daughter
And 3 granddaughters and sometimes
I wonder if we ever could have kept you from going back
Then I remember
It’s not like you just stole something
You took someone’s life
Allegedly
You are accused of the murder of a white woman
And no one batted an eye to the fact that she was a substance abuser
I didn’t know her just know that she used coke and other things
physically abused you, left
Marks on your neck and hands but
You left her for dead in your apartment
Went to work business as usual
I thought you weren’t doing so well but doing your patient is worse
You already start to sound stale and
rehearsed at dinners when you bring a new girlfriend over
These leeches
Draining the life out of you as you
Drive yourself further into your thoughts of missing out on these milestones
I think you must have been lonely
Family wasn’t enough
But we should have been
I can’t visit you
I’m too young
I’m not your mother or daughter
You don’t want me in a place like that but
If you didn’t want me there you shouldn’t have done it
Play stupid games and win stupid prizes goes the saying
But you knew the kind of game you’d be playing
You almost felt more like a father to me than my own present “dad”
Do you know how hard it was for me
In the past 2 years I’ve had?
Should I tell you in less than 10 minutes that
That I was hurt by my closest friend
That I’ve had too many panic attacks to count and
depression is really trying to up its kill count these days
That I was gave myself up to some guy so he wouldn't leave and he left when I did anyway
And my grades are slipping
My test scores are low
And honestly I’m doing worse than I ever have before
But it’s simpler to say I love you and I miss you abuelo
You’d been in jail most of my mother’s life but never any of mine
And now I have to
Carry the weight of someone’s absent life
Missing from all the spaces where they should be
It’s supposed to be you in that seat
And you
just
left me
So if you asked if I’d still love you if you were a killer
I would
Even if you’re the one killing me inside
Artist’s Statement
Numbness. Instead of sadness, anger, or confusion, after finding out that my grandfather had been arrested for murder last May, I felt numb. Partially because I thought, “There’s no need to feel sad because he didn’t do it,” and partially because I didn't have any idea how to even feel about the situation. We were able to get calls from him and send him mail, so for the first few months, I did. It was nothing but trivial talk. One night, over winter break, a thought came to me as I was getting ready to shower: “What I really want to ask is why you let yourself get caught up in this.” And then, sitting on the bathroom floor with blinding rage and grief, I wrote.
Including the line about my father (“You almost felt more like a father to me than my own present ‘dad’”) made me feel conflicted because my father has done so much to support me. But while I never thought of my grandfather as the father figure in my life, he did a lot of the things that a dad is supposed to. Oftentimes, when we were out together in public, my grandfather would get mistaken for my dad. Memories of those moments repeatedly haunted me in the months after his incarceration. Not having him around feels confusing.
Jail doesn’t just hurt the inmate; it hurts their family too. My 8 year-old baby sister still doesn’t understand why she can’t see her grandfather (and attempting to explain things wouldn’t do anyone any good). I want my poem to convey my feelings of rage and betrayal. No good can come from a choice that tears a family apart—we, the children, will never forget the hurt.
Aniyah is a 15 year old residing in Chicago, IL. The majority of her works consist of pieces done in the moment of the feeling, rather than ones worked on over time, as the usual objective of her work is capturing the moment. Through poetry, prose, and photography, she illustrates the way she sees life.
