Hypertext Magazine & Studio collaborated with Chicago’s Above & Beyond Family Recovery Center to bring writing workshops to their clients. This poem is a result of that collaboration.
By Ronald Yokley
One night I had a drink and smoked a joint. I had been feeling good. But it seemed like I had started turning into another man. I wasn’t Ron. I began to turn into somebody else.
I looked into the mirror. I was Superman, Batman, the Hulk, Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, Harold Washington, the first black mayor of the city. Nate Turner. Hitler. George Washington. But weird thing happened when I jumped into water: I turned into Multi-colored Man. I was a super-weird black with green hair and a strange suit, green colored face with dark glasses. Imagine George Clinton with tall boots. And I was riding a fish with a cape. And all of the sudden I was riding a snake. But all of the sudden I became myself again. I did not know what happened to me. I had these different personalities. But I became the Multi-colored Man.
Can you imagine a black man becoming that?
