This is going to be a mad one. I have a genuine excuse this time: I've been in rehearsals for this Sunday's scratch of Grey Matters, a devised spoken word theatre show exploring mental health and, as it happens, with a specific focus on black people and our communities' responses to mental health. I'm also a GCSE and A-Level tutor (exam period is coming. Hit me up) so I ran from the Theatre Royal Stratford East to one of my students in High Barnet. Then from there, sped to the Barbican to finally catch Get Out with my sister, brother, and his best friend. It is a masterpiece and the speed at which the theatre emptied before the credits got rolling was a sight to behold. It's been spoken of as horror, but I have to agree with SugarJ Poet (rah. Bare mentions on this blog), it is really a comedy. But it truly depends on who's watching it. The funniest things are often the truest. I'll leave that there.

Get Out is showing at the Barbican and at Stratford until this weekend. Catch it. Maybe while you're in the area, you can roll through to our scratch. I have a comp going.

Love.

Enjoy (and forgive the roughness of this one)

Stay Woke

A prophet is never honoured in his home town. So when she says
I told you so
do not be surprised because at nightfall and in darkness and in dark skin
I told you so
is all you have to hook onto.

You grew up afraid of the dark.
Now you are scared of sleeping.
You stayed up til dawn this morning. Then you went to bed for paralysis.
But this time instead of silence,
you heard children playing by your bedside.
Before you knew it, your body was a playground
and they were dancing on your back
and you were heavy and sinking.

Tonight you think of humour and Pepsi.
You want to become the beast, cheering when one man is gored to death by another with antlers.
And you remember Psalm 137,
and then Psalm 133.