My Brain's Too Tired

by Wanda Coleman

Mrs. Jackson, we’ve sat in silence for over five minutes. Perhaps you need additional time to gather your thoughts. Would you like to continue our session or should we reschedule?

Continue. I’m sorry I stopped talkin’. But the mere thought of what I have to say exhausts me. It’s so heavy, Dr. Flowers. It’s as if my brain is worn to a frazzle.

I haven’t heard that expression in years.

My mother always used to say that. Ha!

You find something funny?

No. Not a damned thing. Just the opposite. Tragic. The first shrink I went to was some prize niggah shrink—no offense intended. You don’t mind my sayin’ shrink, do you?

No, I do not.

I was so tore down behind all the trouble I’m in, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been away from the church a long time and I couldn’t just jump back into that. I’m not much good at bein’ a hypocrite—although I have come to appreciate those who feel they have no place to take their troubles except to The Lord. But I had gotten so desperate, my friend Cane offered to take me to one o’ his sharin’ group sessions where people stand up and talk out their problems with family or what have you.

What brought that about?

It was EarlRay runnin’ off. I was shook real bad. I called my friend Cane and started tellin’ him about it. He stopped me and told me about his group and said I could go with him and he’d introduce me and I could talk and they’d listen. It was a nice place, somebody’s ranch house, as I recall. It was warm with a high ceiling and all these white people standin’ about in flannel shirts and stuff, relaxed. I was still in my suit, since I hadn’t long got off work. Cane met me outside and we walked in together. He’s a good friend and was tryin’ to support me, but Cane’s white too so he doesn’t always see things from a black perspective.

Meaning?

People do things to you when they look at you. People are animals, their eyes do animal things. Black folk are hypersensitive to that, more so than most. Maybe because of slavery, being brought over and not understanding the white man’s ways and languages forced us to havta learn how to read looks and vibrations. Maybe it got into our blood and passed along that way. Whatever or however, it seems a fact if you go by me. Not that that always works, ’specially when there’s too much confusion and upsettedness. Then the brain gets tired....

Wanda Coleman (ZYZZYVA 2, 52) lives in Los Angeles. Her most recent collection of poems, Mercurochrome, was published by Black Sparrow (Santa Rosa) last spring.