Nick from Connecticut by Selma Asotić (via Vjosa Musliu)

nick-from-connecticut.md

They Descend Upon Us

the American PhDs, eager to investigate this part of the world so often plagued by bursts of inter-ethnic violence. Before they arrived we never knew murder was indigenous to our hands, a thing that blooms at regular intervals like the laughter of history. Nick from Connecticut is here to inspect. A peace studies graduate, whenever there’s war Nick from Connecticut is deployed to spread common sense, ask the right questions—why, instead of why not. The more we war the more we need Nick from Connecticut, a few more genocides and he’ll join the tenure track. O Nick from Connecticut! We’ll come through for you, pocket twenty dollars for our informed consent. We’ll be your very own local informants. Conveniently anonymous. Ready to talk on cue. So we do, and o Nick from Connecticut, yours is the outrage of all folks whose countries would never ever. Yours is a tender soul, there goes compassion dripping from your face onto the floor. It snakes across the room and up our legs. It leaves a trace of hot slime burning through our skin. How do we scrub off your sorry so sorry? No matter what we say you and your wheat-colored hair will never know how fast the shadows lengthen when you try to outrun them. You too are someone’s sweet baby boy, your name Garamond-friendly, your mother on the phone to Aunt Linda I'm so glad he gets to have this experience. O Nick from Connecticut! It’s your mother’s marble kitchen top we covet, the bobbing blond lock, the gentle ignorance of the butcher’s blade. What could it know of the things it severs? In the acknowledgments you'll express sincere gratitude to survivors whose stories testify to the need for restorative justice and transversal reconciliation in the subliminal space of post-conflict contexts. After you we lie wide-eyed for a long time, trying to remember our names. Drool trickles down our chins. Because we’re imagining tying you to a chair, bashing in your head, sweet, baby boy from Connecticut.