"I don't watch the video but I can feel it playing on a loop in a room miles away from where he keeps dying behind my eyes. All I have left are tin… - Saeed Jones

I’m obsessed with manhood as a brutal and artful performance. My mind always finds its way back to the crossroad where sex, race, and power collide. Journeys, transformation, as well as dashed attempts to transform, fascinate me as well.

When I looked up, she was staring at me, wide-eyed, almost pleadingly — as if I'd led someone afraid of heights to the edge of a rusting bridge. And then I did exactly what people who love each other do: I changed the subject; I changed myself; I erased everything I had just said; I erased myself so I could be her son again.

Of course I wanted to see the world, to experience its fullness. I wanted to be a real part of it, rather than the passing shadow I so often felt like. I wanted to devour the world.

I sat there ablaze, struggling to apprehend a new, darkly radiant sense of self.