Sardine to a submarine, he didn’t come up
on my radar. I didn’t fear the supremacist
behind the keyboard, I was surprised
because I knew him from college
but I didn’t truly know him
how I thought I did. He
was a glass car
who thought he had
illuminated headlights, hateful
beliefs and ideals. I told my father
about the comments he made online
in an attempt of character assassination.
My father told me “I had finally made it”.
Deonte Osayande is a former track and field sprinter and writer from Detroit, Michigan. His poems and essays have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology, a Pushcart Prize and published in over a dozen different publications. He has been a member of the Detroit National Poetry Slam Team multiple times. He’s currently a professor of English at Wayne County Community College, and teaching youth through the Inside Out Detroit Literary Arts Program.
A Quiet Courage 