Living Lines: The Boundaries They Drew, and the Freedom We Claim
Poetry in Process
Welcome. We’ve saved you a seat under the Palm Tree.
This week feels different. There is a tonal shift in me, a deep desire to distill what’s whirling within me into something crisp.
I want the poem below to snap clean between your teeth before leaving a shifting impression on your tongue.
I have been feeling tremendous pressure to conform, in multiple parts of my life, pressure to continue to bury the truths I know are bone deep already.
Within that pressure to stay forever within the lines, I have found freedom in choice.
This clip from a podcast hosted by the former highly prodigious ex-NFL player Cam Newton shook me. It got to the heart of what I felt for a long time. There is a deeply embedded idea of where Black people belong, what industry, what art form, what particular modes of expression.
This idea of that’s ours, not yours. You’re here to entertain us, you’re not here to heal, to lead, to build, to design. All of that is our thing. None of this is normal.
I am thirty-five, I will be thirty-six next month, and I have never had a Black primary care provider. Not one.
That is not normal. That is not coincidental. That is intentional.
Given the millennia-long history of Africans leading, engineering, and healing entire civilizations, it is a faithfully sustained myth that Black people are naturally only drawn to, only effective within, certain industries, principally entertainment.
I wrote LIVING LINES as a way to reflect on how these lines, these deeply etched lines, have fought to sequester me.
Living Lines There is a way in which we existed before time A way in which you drew the line. Made it thick and wide, big enough, inky-black enough to hide ourselves in. What a line it was. Marvelous, straight, comforting. Everything was okay within the lines. It was warm within the lines. The sun shone on our faces. Within the lines, I melanated in melancholy. I twisted tirelessly with the things I lost, and the things I am yet to lose. Loosely speaking, I love you. I don't love these lines. I don't love the way they delineate so much of our lives, so much of our patterns, So much of our joy. I don't love the way they question the source of our laughter, the depths of our truths, The urgency of our needs. The validity of our despair. The lines are ruthless. We turn them into dashes, and they reconnect. They re-emerge, more solid than before, thicker, inkier. The lines are sentient, bubbling, curdling, with judgment. They simmer with, "I wouldn't do that." The lines care little for our singularity. They consider themselves singular, singular in their righteous position. Singular in their mission of keeping everyone, everywhere, in their place, every time. It's ceaseless work. It's moral maintenance for whoever sees this work. Do you see the work? The toil, the simmer, The boil, The stretch, The coil? Or do you not see the lines? Olu Ayo, May 10th, 2025
What are the living lines you are trying to leave behind?
Share your thoughts in the comments below. Let’s give courage and encouragement freely during these turbulent times.
In solidarity,
Olu