Side-eye
There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to why we isolate ourselves — even when it appears to be a “good” thing. We find out the only difference that separates the isolationists from the people who want to get away from everyone and everything is that we come back to all of it. We return to the people — to the world; and we are tired of the people, of the world.
Perhaps it’s the preexisting conditions that we’re exposed to that makes us tired.
Sometimes I feel like I become tired of myself because of the combination of everything I’m experiencing simultaneously. I turned 32 last November and it feels as though everything’s been catching up to me all at once.
My white cardiologist confirmed my suspicions and diagnosed me with chronic kidney disorder (CKD) a few weeks ago. Since that conversation with him has left me feeling overall drained — as if the energy had been sucked out of me. I ponder on a day-to-day basis. I know it’s because I deal with insomnia. I deal with obstructive sleep apnea, depression, psychosis — moments of hypervigilance, paranoia, generalized anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress, high blood pressure, quadruple vaccinated and still ended up being reinfected with COVID four to five times throughout this pandemic.
It’s a matter of life and death
The cardiologist remarked. He was suggesting that if I don’t get my diet and weight under control, there’s a potential chance I’ll end up on dialysis. From his tone, it felt as though I would be better off being dead than allowing CKD to exacerbate. Since that day, I remember being so worried about what to eat and what not to eat — willfully abstaining from eating as a punitive measure for allowing myself to get to this point.
All in all, this is shit that no Black person wants to hear — let alone anyone wants to hear — though, I imagine Black folks are beyond disheartened with being told this message to us by the system of racist capitalism itself.
It’s also more clear to me now why Black folks — such as myself — Black folks altogether are righteously and vigilantly distrustful of the medical industry: the forced sterilization of Black women — the Tuskegee experiment of six-hundred plus Black men — the racist, fatphobic myth of BMI. These examples go without saying that the unmitigated distrust of the medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries are warranted without further speculation.
I blamed myself despite the fact that there were multiple contributing factors — that I was in an ongoing battle against my now-deceased landlord and procuring my housing rights as a tenant — that I was under the hostility of my two roommates who abetted the landlord in intimidating me to self-evict via text message—that they would be moving on in the apartment “without me” — as if they had the license to talk to me in this disgustingly authoritative, bootlicking way — that I was jobless for months and was online panhandling to crowdfund funds to buy food and basic necessities — angry about all that transpired — that I could potentially be displaced again — before the landlord died last Summer, she actively spied on my social media, tried to level a claim that I wanted her dead, and lied to my face that this was not the case.
I hold no mercy or remorse in my heart for the death of people who uphold exploitative positions, be they African or european settler. I suspect my ancestors responded to her violence and she arrogantly took her lies to her grave.
Before I could get more than a word out to call her out on her bullshit, I contemplated recording her on video to compile evidence in the event I receive a summons to be taken to court and she attempts to lie. I positioned my phone to record, but didn’t push the record button. She murmured that I was recording her. On her way down the stairs went she abruptly exclaimed,
Get the fuck out of my house!
Mind you, this landlord — who was extremely passive-aggressive — could not hold a conversation — left no room for empathy or explanation. The landlord was a real piece of shit as all landlords are by their position alone. She lived on the first floor of the apartment. I was unnerved that at any moment, I was expecting to see her face. It was sad to say the least. Both my landlord and roommates are Black. It’s sad because it’s my own people who have uncritically adopted these backwards, white supremacist, colonial positions.
It’s not a simple matter of the fact that anyone living amongst two other people would feel inclined to have one roommate who has been experiencing financial hardships to be displaced by intimidating them to self-evict. It’s the fact that there are Black people out here who will fulfill just about any position at the expense of other Black people — be it a pitiful cop, landlord, judge, an FBI, CIA, or ICE agent, often knowing full well the sociopolitical ramifications of what those positions entail.
To the problem of our current medical system, what does it mean to “seek help” with all this in mind? What does it mean to “seek help” when seeking help is not a request; it’s no less a fight for one’s rights. There are logistical obstacles to every request. In those obstacles, I have to be reminded that I shouldn’t give up so easily — shouldn’t take no for an answer.
It matters not of the receptionist or doctor’s occupational position. They’re making all this money and for what? For these people to opt-out of a phone call to be asked of a simple request? For these people to talk in these damn absolutes about whether or not a medication or service is available?
No. I can’t put any of this shit past me.
I have to fight to live.
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Patrick Jonathan Derilus is an American-born Haitian independent writer and Goodreads author who resides in Brooklyn, New York. Their pronouns are he, him, his, or they, them, theirs. They write poetry, short stories, and essays. They are published in RaceBaitR, Rabble Literature Magazine, Cutlines Press Magazine, Linden Avenue Literature Magazine, and elsewhere. They are the author of their 2016 anthological work, Thriving Fire: Musings of A Poet’s Odyssey and newest ebook, Perennial: a collection of letters.
