Thank the Shield
“History is what it is, it knows what it did.” Danez Smith
What does a vested interest in brotherhood look like?
Is the longing for a brother to turn his face toward you merely a hunger to be seen?
Is brotherhood the space where all our worst choices come home to roost?
Where do the lines blur—between boy-man and man-child?
Who holds claim over what aspect of brotherhood? And when do they assume dominion?
Can a band of men, each an independent brother, bond with another band of brothers?
Or is this just a game of geography—territory cloaked as kinship?
—
“History is what it is, it knows what it did.”
—Danez Smith
—
In the end, the colors we wear won’t matter.
The lies spit across borders and backdrops will carry no weight.
But the protection will.
The shielding will.
Have you ever considered the beauty of one body shielding another from a bullet?
Yes—selfless. Yes—heroic.
But beyond the virtue-signaling, beyond the pedestal we build for altruism,
lives a body willing to give a limb—broken, abused, mistrusted, mistreated, [un]loved—
to preserve another life.
I’m not just speaking of flesh and wounds.
These are the wounds of brothers.
Of mothers mourning sons.
Of friends clutching the fading pulse of kin.
These are the scars born between boys who were only ever taught to weaponize their pain—
and the enemies made for knowing too much truth.
Not everything known is truth.
Not every truth is known.
I’ve yet to find a writer who deals in the limbs of his brother.
Surely, there must be one—
one who can restore the armor of the shield.
One who knows how to hold the weight of a story
and sort the truths from the silence.
I’ve been mistrusted. I’ve mistrusted.
I’ve told the truth—
then rented half of it back to my own conscience.
The honest truth—and I say this as a writer who doesn’t much believe in truth—
is that I’ve carried too many mis-tellings.
Some mine. Most theirs.
I’ve borne the wrath of mistrust.
Held the secret parts of others’ unknown.
And even when I tried to craft weapons from it,
nothing formed.
Even when I wanted to conjure a truth sharp enough
to set fire to everything I ever loved—
the kindling refused the flame.
I wanted to destroy them with truth.
A truth they knew, and I knew too.
But the water wanted cleansing.
I wanted a vested interest in their destruction—
to dismantle all they had built, the way they tried to do me.
I knew who to call.
What to say.
How to architect a story so miraculous it birthed a dominion—
with me as its crown.
I tried.
I made a plan.
I wrote it down.
Studied their allies, drew my blueprint.
I wanted to show them the depth of my cold Black soul.
To be meticulous in my vengeance.
The stage was set.
The players in place.
All I had to do was call: Action.
I wanted to be a menace to my enemies.
And I tried.
And I failed.
Instead,
I became the shield.
I kept their secrets,
hoping one day someone might keep mine.
I held onto their harm,
guiding them from poison the only way I knew how—
out of the palm of my own.
I gave them what I never had—
not at that age,
not at that precipice between living and dying,
between venom and vision.
To be a shield is to meet the first blow.
To carry the burden of the initial strike.
To be the first pierced, the first torn.
To take the wounds meant for others,
praying your body is dense enough to resist death’s aim.
No one thanks the shield in battle.
No one checks its pulse in the heat of bloodshed.
Only when the shield cracks—
only when it fails—
do we finally tend to the thing
that once saved us.