The Do's and Don'ts | Love If Only

By Erica Jasmin Dixon

The Do’s and Don’ts

If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.
–Zora Neale Hurston 

Don’t kneel on a football field during the national anthem,

Don’t peacefully march down the street,

Don’t wear shirts that read “I can’t breathe”,

Don’t burn things down to send a message,

Don’t voice your concerns on television, online, or on any platform,

Don’t wear pins on your lapel that represent your cause.

Do ignore the problems like they don’t exist,

Do agree when racists say that we are the problem,

Do let others decide how you respond to oppression,

Do push down all your pain and tears,

Do stay in the trap that was built for us,

Do go docile into the night.

Don’t be surprised when they still kill you and claim that you liked it.

Love If Only

I hate that I’m like this

It’s one of my worst traits

I could love you

If I’d let me

But my soul stamped its foot

Like a surly three-year-old & proclaimed “No”

I could love you

If broken men hadn’t loved me first

I could love you

If the light of optimism hadn’t left my eye at such a tender age

I could love you

If I sat down and did the shadow work

I could love you

If I loved myself

I could love you

If I didn’t cry myself to sleep

I could love you

If I were logical and didn’t think that it made me look weak

I could love you

If I were untouched.


Erica Jasmin Dixon is a writer and artist originally from Raeford, North Carolina. She holds an MFA degree from Queens University of Charlotte; her creative work has appeared in various literary publications, to include Red Fez Publications, Dream Noir Literary Magazine, and blood orange tarot.