
Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night
Reviews

Favorites:
-"There Are Other Things I Want to Explain but They Are Mysteries"
-"How to Piss in Public and Maintain Femininity"
-"Real Housewife Considers Feminist Theory While Sketching Designs for Her Handbag Line"
-"Greetings from Struggle City"
-"White Walls White People"
-"Young, Sassy, and Black"
-"I’d Rather Sink . . . Than Call Brad for Help!"

This was a very interesting book, written in verse. It was raw, rowdy and visceral, but also very funny in unexpected spots. There were several interesting poems -- my favorites were the ones titled "Miss America" and the one where she imagines herself as part of "The Cosby Show". There were poems that I didn't quite get, but there were also ones that seemed like I wasn't going to get them, then, POW, you get hit with a line or two that really hits you -- I re-read several that had that impact on me. I would rate it as a light 4, but definitely recommended.







Highlights

I double as a canvas
for lit- up seeds
boys like fat brushstrokes
up close
they are grotesque
-"Everything Is Bothering Me"

I am more comfortable
being mourned than loved.
I feel my death: It is tucked
inside my ear like an itch
or a bad idea.
It’s too late for coffee, or reason, or capability.
-"Epistolary Poem for Reader, Brother, Grandmother, Men (or, When I Say I Want to Spit You Up)"

I have been leaving space
on one side of the bed
which gives me sad dreams.
(Reader, please know
when I say bed I mean sex.)
-"Epistolary Poem for Reader, Brother, Grandmother, Men (or, When I Say I Want to Spit You Up)"

I use these words
to distract you.
-"Young, Sassy, and Black"

Applicants without extensive
dicks and cash flows need
to sit the fuck down.
Everyone else, you alright, except
I’ll expect you to change for me.
I know you won’t, I whisper
to every boy every morning
while he snores, stiff
and hairy in my bed.
-"Boys, Boys, Boys"

feel the exhaustion of wearing the mask, the weight of being Black in non- Black public, the talent that living takes. This feels a long question across Morgan’s work, a Real World rewrite: what if we stopped persisting, stopped having to survive, stopped performing, and just got to be? Maybe not a question, but a plea, a prayer for self and her people alike. Can I live?
-Danez Smith