September 4, 2026
—
Originally published in Issue No. 14 of The Bitter Southerner Magazine
Because I was born and will be buried wearing
another man’s name.
Because of the panic I still feel
when I misplace my I.D.
Because my grandfather forgot things in his last years but remembered
being called a boy for half his life.
Because conversations about Egypt and the motherland
don’t mention all the Kushites chained under the Pharaoh’s feet.
Because something doesn’t feel right
about putting a date on freedom.
Because some of us never needed civil wars
or civil rights to be free.
Because slavery was only a chapter
in a blood dark novel.
Because I don’t know if I can afford to live
in the suburbs or the city.
Because there’s a boy that could have been
me in a cage right now.
Because there’s a boy that could have been
me in a grave right now.
Because the world only loves me when it’s time to use me
to shame other black men that I could have been.
Because the cages never stop
at a border.
Because skin is the border
this country fights the hardest to maintain.
Because so many ghosts in so many graves have already written this
poem better than I ever could.
Because being a ghost is the only freedom
Jason McCall is the author of Silver (Main Street Rag); I Can Explain (Finishing Line Press); Dear Hero, (Winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize); Mother, Less Child (co-Winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize); Two-Face God (WordTech Editions); A Man Ain't Nothin' (Porkbelly Press); and What Shot Did You Ever Take (co-written with Brian Oliu). He is also the co-editor of the anthology It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and he is from the great state of Alabama, where he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.