subhuman is a compelling and unflinching exploration of life behind bars, written during the authorâs incarceration. Through the lens of a Black, queer man, this work sheds light on the often unspoken physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges faced by the incarcerated. subhuman is a poignant and necessary read, offering a voice to those whose stories are too often left untold.
subhuman is a compelling and unflinching exploration of life behind bars, written during the authorâs incarceration. Through the lens of a Black, queer man, this work sheds light on the often unspoken physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges faced by the incarcerated. subhuman is a poignant and necessary read, offering a voice to those whose stories are too often left untold.
Under the Courthouse
under the courthouse
they strip you of time
of seconds and minutes
then days of your life
they strip you of you
the one youâve always known
and ignore the now faceless
shell you call home
under the courthouse
everything starts to hit
your face burns red-hot
your mind starts to split
pacing and pacing
between future and past
how long youâve been here
how if you went back
youâd make better choices
drive straight home that night
so when your eyes open
they burn bright with sunlight
not in a stuffy cell
or a dorm so minute
but this is first run
not the fucking reboot
under the courthouse
what you know is all gone
is three years enough
to fully write my wrongs?
Who Remembers Phone Numbers Anymore?
Settle down, settle down
I have moved way too much,
it has not even been
a whole month.
Donât bother making friends,
you wonât be around
long enough to learn
their middle names. Be sure
to buy an address book or
rip a page from a bible
because in a few weeks,
you wonât even remember
their first.
From the wild
bullpen to a dull dim
concrete room.
Moved again: a moldy
gym, then explosive East
Dorm where sneaky sickness
burrowed inside me
â hiding! â
via the hole where my humanity
no longer resides, right
below my heart.
A quickie quarantine up the highway,
ten days in a cell,
twenty-three hours a day.
The green rubberized floor
stared back at me, welcome company.
What to do with my hour:
dial home or shower?
Settle down, settle down
I think I need to settle down.
Can you just let me settle down?
I have moved way too much,
it has not even been
a whole month â
after I have learned
and healed
â I think my tea
kettle has settled,
my sore feet nailed
firmly into the linoleum â anxiously
awaiting the delayed arrival
of my address book.
These Headphones Should be Free
I walk down a dim hall, and appreciate the coruscating layer of wax on the floor
(how I could sleep there!)
laid probably earlier today, or last week, or in the time before Securus tablets, that time before headphones when Jesus Christ himself roamed old earth and pulled men
from dirt slumber. Why are you complaining? It is unbecoming and very much beneath you, very much like the man you ran into the soil, velvet sky polka-dotted with the remnants
of creation winking overhead. Heâll never
listen to The Trouble with Fever, and would never ever stew over a lack of cheap earbuds. Even that, I am certain, is beneath him.
I aspire to be more like that man. Quiet, cold, painless, alone. Instead, The Man gave me everything to which I am entitled: purple and turquoise walls, three hots, a cot, and Scantron grocery lists. Among other things, I am filled to the brim with privilege; the sum of thirty-six months is mercy. Divine. Ineffable.Using a borrowed black
Bic I bubble off what, by chance or by karma, I am missing, bite my tongue till it bleeds, and swallow copper self-righteousness and leaden pride. Force myself to
remember how life is unfair, how one life snuffed out becomes many, and how much money Iâll have for next weekâs order. I imagine in vivid phantasmagoria how different
life might be if I paid attention in church, if I kept on going every Sunday with Grandma. Probably Iâd still be an erupting volcano of shame and contrition, wondering forever
where Jesus Christ is when you need him and whether my prayers are just mp3s for aliens.
Theoretical Math for DOC Employees
If the prison is down
sixteen counselors
with only three supervisors,
then the sum of frustration
must surely be greater
than or equal to all
vacation days taken
when our livelihoods
are at stake.
However:
if certain conditions
arenât met, that is,
enough officers
to be let out for rec,
the square root
of our dignity multiplied
by the collective indolence
â nine times out of ten â
equals funereal impatience
tangible in my dorm.
It is quite simple.
The number of supercilious answers
give to heart-
burning questions is just
a sand-grain percentage of the superfluity
their words carry.
And if you canât wrap
your head around this:
shut up,
and sign up for school.
The Bathroom Just Smells Better During Late Night, Okay?
at last!
I topple off
my bunk, shh!
dorm quiet
a mouse
scurries by
say hi! to Mr. Jingles
the big screen
television playing
SNL while C.O.
whatshisface
shouts no! in his sleep
it feels wrong
an arrant aberration
to empty my bladder
its 3am â
the smell of swill
dutifully removed hours
ago, the community
sump smells fresh!!
like disinfectant,
that is. lemon scented
spray because bleach,
They say, is much
too urbane
I hope I hope
no one wakes
when worms gambol about
those ptomaine shower drains
or when the toilets flush
itâs just so messy
when the sunâs around
& when itâs down
my bunkie isnât nodding
off at urinals
spraying!
dubious fluids on the floor
itâs just so messy
when the sunâs
around.
This is one of those books that is so authentic, clever, intimate, relatable, heartbreaking, and well-executed that I wish I had written it. But I couldnât have written it, for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being that the poems in subhuman were written about the experience of incarceration while the author was behind bars, and while I have friends who have served time I have not. And while those friends speak passionately about the intricate (and vastly scientific) assemblage of a commissary burrito served warm without an oven, theyâve never described the hellacious patience at play within the psyche of an inmate over the stent of a weekend âand Sunday solid / like a lumpy sack of old / potatoes begging to be mashedâ as stated in âWhereâs the Mail?â. Or about what is âbiological and acceptable / by some old laws when / the fairer body is unavailableâ as âLessons in Cell Etiquetteâ so deftly disseminates.
While each piece in this collection is singular, Taylorâs choice of poem placement displays how great poetry can also be an effective longer form of storytelling. The collection opens with âUnder the Courthouseâ where along with the minutes and days âthey strip you of youâ and the author asks in the final stanza, âis three years enough / to fully write my wrongs?â Itâs with lines like these that are clever, subtly layered, and deeply introspective that Taylor manages to âfully writeâ the microcosm of incarceration over the macrocosm of the universal human condition. He shows amazing craftmanship with pieces like âTheoretical Math for DOC Employees,â âCommissary Cuisine Art,â and âMeditation on Trying to Obtain the Typewriterâ whose titles and verse are as playful as they are dire. And âBlack Enoughâ (one of my personal favorites) that explores the tension of intraracial expectations that is so rarely explored in our culture and even rarer to be explored well.
While we donât know what landed Taylor behind bars we do know, from the presentation of this moving collection, that he is an incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, and empathetic observer of himself and others. It is work like this, from authors like this, that just might save us from ourselves. And if that sounds like a good thing, this book is for you.