The Taking of Jake Livingston

It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you can’t change yourself. So you have no choice but to be yourself. Fuck everyone who has a problem with it.

My room has one window, and a bed and a closet. A place to sleep, a place to hide, a place to escape.

Black people are always the punch line of a joke--it's maybe why none of the books we read have Black people in them unless they're slaves.

And most days? I can’t figure out what I hate more: seeing the dead or being the only one Black eleventh grader at St. Clair Prep.

It seems impossible to turn something so pretty so ugly, but it’s not. Everything turns ugly after it’s dead.

It’s amazing how many people don’t wanna look racist and how few care about actually being it.

But it’s hard for me sometimes to waste time wondering where I’ll go once I leave home when I can barely figure out how to manage my day-to-day life.

The moonlight still frames my room like a security spotlight, quiet and unfeeling, as if God saw everything that happened and simply did not care.

I always feel like I’m learning slower than everyone around me what exactly I’m supposed to like and how I’m supposed to be.

There are many things about life I've yet to understand, because some resist clear definitions.

I'd like to be happy and leave people alone. Why don't other people want the same thing?

Its amazing how many people don’t want to LOOK racist, and how few care about not actually being it.

The Postal Service, SZA, and Syd.

I’ve never been able to talk to mom about anything because she’s never been there. Only halfway there.

What does someone have to think about themselves to wear a crown in their aura? To be a king?

I don’t like Doritos but I like things being offered to me because it makes me feel welcome, in a way.

Our friendship never really settled in. It’s actually a long-lasting accident which started at the courtyard tables last year when he invited himself to sit next to me. I was reading. He asked me what I was reading. My solitude ended and I’ve never gotten it back.

It’s amazing how many people don’t want to look racist and how few care about not actually being it.

Like the jolt I get after an astral glide, when my body reminds my soul that it’s alive.

I didn’t know how to let people’s opinions of me not matter. But it’s pointless to try to change anything about myself because I can’t. Might as well just find people who are okay with it.

Grandma’s house is where I learned to fall on hard times. It’s where I learned about art and cooking and culture.

I’m sorry,” I say. It hurts to know the words won’t matter as much as I want them to.

The trouble with my mother is she’s too busy pretending problems don’t exist to ever really fix them.

Mostly I feel empty and lost on questions like, “You good?” I have no reference point to know what good or bad is. I’m only existing. I guess that means I’m good.

Finona holds out a bag of chips to me and I invite myself to two or three. I don’t like Doritos, but I like being offered things because it makes me feel welcome, in a way.

At the end of the day, you can't change yourself. So you have no choice but to be yourself. Fuck everyone who has a problem with it.

Sawyer, PLEASE," she begged. "Just open up. Can't go hurting yourself over a dumb argument. Can't handle your problems that way." But I can. "Sawyer?" Quiet now. Hush, and panic. A wink spasmed at the corner of my mouth. This was fun. "Sawyer?" Annie called. I like to hear her weak and afraid she'd be the one to push me to my limit. It makes the pain go away. To imagine her explaining HER behavior in the aftermath of my untimely death. "Sawyer?" The quiver in her voice was music to my ears. "Sawyer?" Say my name. Say my name forever.

I hate it here. Every time we run warm-up laps it's like there's a BLACK KID sign blinking above my head like a firetruck light, alerting the coaches of my whereabouts on the track. They are always keeping their eyes on me. Most days I want to run off this campus, find shelter in the woods, and spend a few years not being perceived just to recover from the trauma of being hyper-visible.

If you think that changes sum'n about all this, then you STUPID, boy! It's been Black folks like you, Jake, since it's been Black folks--you know you sound like a fool. Because when you gone, it's gon' be a whole lot more just like you to be born. And they will know who you were and know that it's okay to live, because you lived before them.

It is to me. I'm African American, ma'am. My homeostasis is not built for cold weather. So I feel it even though you guys don't.