10 Steps to Drowning

By Madeline McConico

1. It starts off small. Like, racism is bad. Noticing your mom has darker skin. Grateful you don’t. It starts with washing your face. Scrubbing, scrubbing, as you think of your dad saying, shug, you’ve got to keep your face clean because you’ve got brown skin. It starts with locking the door in the morning, using soap so your eyes sting, rubbing the filth away.

2. It sounds like her deep breathing. Sarah, the pastor’s daughter sits next to you and breathes so you have to notice. She asks you how you deal with it. The racism, the prejudice. There are these boys in my hall, and they keep calling me white girl. I hate it, she told you. You don’t understand why she feels you are an expert in her pain. You feel an aching warmth in your stomach. Your head hurts. You tell Sarah to pray about it. It’s still small. Racism. But now it’s small and it breathes. Makes it harder for you to—

3. Your feet are running. There’s a sound of crunching grass. A cool frost in the air and a girl in front of you. Her white dress. She has no face and tells you she’s enslaved. She needs your help escaping it. You follow her to an old bathroom with a large tub. It’s filled with water. You help her drown herself. She tells you it’s for freedom. Your mom says it was just a dream. Slavery happened a long time ago. She tells you it's small. It’ll stay in your nightmares

4. A girl in class touches your puffball. The one your mother said was beautiful. Your dad,too. He said your puffball reminded him of the motherland. He called that land Africa. The girl’s hands are small, her mouth is not. Her exclamation of disgust is not. What’s in your hair? She asks you. Oil. She asks the teacher if she can wash her hands. They’re dirty, Mrs. Grabbert. The girl is sent to the bathroom. Mrs. Grabbert takes you to the front of the line. Tells you you’re being distracting. You touch the oil in your hair. It begins to feel gross to you too.

5. You finish listing the American presidents by name. Your father doesn’t smile. Asks you if you know Emmett Till's name. You don’t. He tells you the story, shows you what his face looked like after being beaten to death. You look at his face that doesn’t look much like a face anymore. Your father tells you there are millions more out there just like Emmett Till. You remember your sister teaching you how to doggy paddle when the water gets too deep. It’s just to keep your head above water, she says. You return from the memory and look away from your father. And Emmett Till. And the millions. You doggy paddle.

6. You watch that Dr. Phil episode where a black girl is convinced she is white. The white doctor phil and the white audience tries to help her. Groans and moans when they fail. Your mother sighs, how sad. You nod. You remember trying to straighten your hair for the first time without your dad knowing. You remember looking at your best friend Sylvia’s blue eyes. Wishing they were your own. You start to understand the black girl on doctor Phil when she begins to look like you.

7. A thirteen year old boy is asked if he touched that white woman’s titties in When They See Us— A true story. He’s asked if he liked how it felt. The white police officer leans in closer to the black boy’s face. Asks if he liked that white pussy. The boy cries and cries and covers his ears. Tries to trap the remaining innocence inside. Says he doesn’t understand. Says he just wants to go home. But he’s being held hostage without food. Without water. Without sleep. The episode hasn't ended, but you’re crying. Spitting at your sister to shut the tv off. She doesn’t. We have to watch their story, Madeline. It’s the least we can do. The episode ends, but you never finish the series. You run to the bathroom and throw up. Spend the next three days in bed trying not to sink. Become scared of the dark in that white police officer’s eyes as he leans closer

8. A boy pushes you into the deep end of the pool during your friend’s pool party. You can’t swim. The frigid water envelopes your body, pulls your head in. You remember reading about a black family, a dentist, his wife, their child moving into an all white neighborhood in the 50s. They bring a friend. They bring guns just in case to protect themselves. Try to grasp the American Dream. Sit on the edge of it. The whole white neighborhood, all of their angry white faces, hover around the house. They throw rocks and branches and bricks. Shoot at the house. The police stand watching until the family shoots back. The dentist, his wife, their child are all thrown into jail and you’re still sinking now. Your eyes sting and gulp down chlorine. The blur of faces hovers above you, and you begin to throw your body with all of your strength, back to where breathing is easier. That family stays in jail for months. The wife and child catch hypothermia before they’re ruled not guilty. The wife, and the child die soon after from the after effects of their jail time. The dentist returns to his piece of the American Dream alone. Sits on the edge of it. Grabs his gun and cleans it, before shooting himself in the head. You fail. Your body is heavier than it's ever been. You choke on the water and continue to sink.

9. Your mother calls you from the hospital. Says your niece got cleaning spray in her eyes after your nephew got his hands on it. She tells you that child protective services was called on your sister. That she’s being interrogated. That she might lose Levi and Leia. You're in water and it's freezing but everything inside your body feels hot. Your lungs are filled with the stinging of fire. Your mother tells you a story about her friend. She was a Black woman who didn’t have enough money to keep the lights on, she said. Her children were hungry and she was doing her best, but child protective services took her three children. That was years ago. You feel yourself go numb. The water has become everything. You choke againand continue to sink. That woman is fine now. She has a job. But she hasn’t been able to get her children back. She hears about how her daughter has been raped. That her son was sent to juvie. That her youngest won’t talk at all. She has a job now and wants her kids back. Your mom tells you this. Tells you this would never happen to a white woman. Her voice shakes over the phone as she asks you to help her sing the itsy bitsy spider for your niece.

10. Water is everything now as you sink. As you fail at breathing. It is you washing your brown face for too long. It is Sarah and her deep breathing. It is the feeling of the oil in your hair. It’s Dr. Phil and that all White crowd. The water is Emmett Till and the millions you now can’t seem to look away from. It’s that thirteen year old boy and the innocence he lost. The darkness in the white police officer’s eyes. It’s the darkness leaning closer. It’s that gun in the dentist’s hands. It’s your sister doing her best not to lose her kids. The sound of itsy bitsy spider. It’s continuing to sink.

Madeline McConico (she/her) is a Chicago-based poet, editor, and artist.

She holds a BA in English from Iowa State University and completed her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Allium: A Journal of Prose & Poetry, Opal Literacy,  POTLUCK, and more. She currently works as a part-time adjunct at Lewis University, while serving as the Co-Founder, Editor, and Creative Director of the upcoming project and publication Unwoven Literary Magazine. Madeline is a Co-Curator for Off the Page: Poetry Reimagined.

In her free time, Madeline is an impassioned intermediate yogi and an avocado toast eater. She lives with her roommate Annalise, who she hopes to buy a clown fish with soon.