My Twitter Feed Becomes Too Much

Taylor Byas

I come across pictures of two rubber bulletsnestled in a palm, their nose tips blackand rounded like a reporters’ foam-coveredmic. The caption reads These maim, break skin,cause blindness. Another photo—a hollowcaved into a woman’s scalp, floating handsin blue gloves dabbing at the spill. An offhandcomment in the replies—are you sure that rubber bulletcaused that type of damage?—the question hollowedof genuine concern. The page refreshes. A blackman melts into a street curb from exhaustion, his skinblotched with sweat and red. Protester’s hands coverhis body, and this is church. A baptism—coverme with the blood. And there are more. Hand-drawn threats—shoot the FUCK back. Police cars skinnedof their lettering and paint from the bullet-aim of Molotov cocktails in Budweiser bottles. BlackLives Matter markered in thick letters below the hollowoutline of the black power fist. A gas mask’s eye-hollowsglinting with tears. The page refreshes. Undercovercops wearing matching armbands like a gang. A blackarmy tank crawling through city streets the way a handmay tip-toe up a thigh. The page refreshes. A bulletlist of places to donate if I can’t put my skinin the game protesting in the streets. The snakeskinpattern of fires from a bird’s-eye view of DC. HollowedTarget storefronts. The page refreshes. Rubber bulletspinging a reporter and her crew as they run for cover,a white woman’s reply—things are getting out of handpunctuated with heart emojis. Protester’s shadows blackingthe fiery backdrop of the riots. Badge numbers blackedover with tape. The page refreshes. A man skinnedby the asphalt when pulled from his car with both handsup. A police car plowing into a peaceful crowd. The hollowpromises from white friends to “do better”—a cover-up for how quickly they will bulletinto our inboxes and ask us to hand them the answers. Blackrubber bullets—the page refreshes—a woman’s forehead skinsplit—page refreshes—a bloody hollow—refresh—take cover.

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Taylor Byas is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is now a third year PhD student and Yates scholar at the University of Cincinnati, and an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus. She was the 1st place winner of both the 2020 Poetry Super Highway and the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets Contests, and a finalist for the 2020 Frontier OPEN Prize. She is the author of the chapbook Bloodwarm from Variant Lit, and her debut full-length, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, forthcoming from Soft Skull Press in Spring of 2023. She is represented by Rena Rossner of the Deborah Harris Agency.

Cover of Bloodwarm

North Carolina

"Bloodwarm is a book that chills the spine, yes, but also meditates on the now. We are at the gas station. We are on Twitter. We are leaving a voicemail for Madam C.J. Walker. Through rhythm, repetition, and rapport, Byas weaves together poems that will décor the night while we sit in a dark corner counting to ten, then screaming 'ready or not, here I come.' And although we seek, it is her words that find us."
—Luther Hughes, Founder of Shade Literary Arts

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