For the Ones Who Stayed

A Poetic Journey Through Ryan Coogler's Sinners (Part 4)

Last week, I followed the rhythm into motion, into a dance floor alive with tension, joy, and resistance. In Vampires in the Shadows, I explored whether music can hold a wound without letting it consume the body, how rhythm itself becomes a prayer of survival.

For those just joining, this is part four of a five-week collaboration with Robert Monson, a brilliant writer and Black theopoeticist. Together we are moving through Ryan Coogler’s Sinners scene by scene, exchanging poems as a kind of call and response, searching for the place where art meets spirit and where loss bends toward grace.

Robert began our series with Call me Delta Slim, a meditation on witness and endurance. I followed with I Met Her At the Juke Joint, a poem of tenderness and desire. Then came The Last Smoke and Robert’s reply, you can hold her once you put that cigarette out, two laments circling death and release. His most recent piece, On the “Rocky Road to Dublin”, carried the music forward, tracing the collision of rhythm, resistance, and recognition.

This week, we turn from the dance floor to the sanctuary. Movement gives way to stillness; the body gives way to breath. We arrive at Sammie’s return to the church, where redemption becomes a reckoning and the sacred comes face to face with the profane. The church stands as both a refuge and a mirror, welcoming, yet unsettling at the same time.

In this piece, I listen for that tension.

What does it mean to return to the place that once held you, yet also hurt you? To seek healing in a space that remembers your sins as much as your songs? To believe that grace might still find you when everything else has fallen away?

This poem lingers in that threshold, tracing the tremors between confession and redemption, listening for the quiet moments where forgiveness begins.

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For the Ones Who Stayed

I. The Sound of Home

At the moment the skyline vanished I realized
I wasn’t just leaving home, I was leaving behind the odd safety
we cherished in the chaos of our concrete jungle.

The clench in my jaw on walks from the subway to my front stoop,
the fast-paced trot that dodged strangers like syncopated notes,
the rich colors of hip hop, bachata, reggae, and salsa
spilling from the corner store—sacred rhythms in a wooden box.

The scent of ripe plantains lingers in the humid air,
sweet as my grandmother’s hymn among the tomatoes,
oil singing in the skillet as tears roll down her cheeks.

The block watches as I drag my duffel bag down the steps—
inside, a pair of sneakers dusted with playground chalk, 
a folded book whispering dreams through dog-eared pages.

The last thing someone says: you back already?
I laugh, you already know, not sure if I’m coming or going,
their soft smile a silent benediction I can’t quite return.

A basketball hammers the black asphalt nearby,
each bounce reminding me the block keeps time without me.
I pull my Yankees fitted low, stitched with victories and prayers.
In the bus window, my reflection grins, says you good,

says we always gon’ be here waiting for you, 
says don’t forget how to dance on beat.
Our stove was once an altar call, the block a temple for sinners,
I’m still trying to remember how I kept the faith.

II. The Bus as Sanctuary

The bus rumbles into motion like an anxious dog chasing a cat—
a rehearsed growl, familiar yet restless; the engine hums
a tired prayer rising through stained carpet.

The tires whine softly like four monks chanting in sync,
long notes soothing anxieties beneath wool sweaters.
I hear the beat in my headphones—boom clap boom boom boom clap clap.
The rhythm steadies my breath like a rosary, bead by bead.

A mother leans toward her teenage son and whispers,
It’s better this way. Your cousins in Boston attend a better school.
He stares at his reflection, mutters: They talk different there.

I want to tell the boy that I see him,
that faith isn’t always belief—sometimes it’s slow motion,
that I miss the block too.

Chinatown blurs past in a sea of reds and yellows,
dragons dipping in and out of shadow like restless spirits,
neon characters flashing gospels I’ll never read.

The smell of fried food wafts through the cracked window,
grease and incense mingling like candle smoke.
The street performers dip like praise dancers before the pews,
and for a moment their hustle and flow feels holy.

The bus becomes a church, the driver our preacher,
the fluorescent lights flickering like stained glass in the morning.
Those up front lean forward to catch the sermon,
those in the back wrestle with last night’s sins.

III. The Hymn of Return

Daylight shifts toward orange,
the nervous breathing of passengers exposed,
eyebrows shifting like tides between prayers.

My father’s voice returns in the shuffle of memory—
he’s on the back porch playing solitaire,
cards sliding across wood like hymnal pages,
each hand a quiet act of grace.

I wonder if engineering will ruin that joy for me,
if building new bridges means unlearning old ways,
if I will still marvel at what already stands behind me.

A church bell follows us down the highway,
its echo folds into the whir of rumbling wheels,
calling, blessing, but not demanding.

The bus window fogs as I breathe a deep sigh.
I scribble my initials—ET—across the pane,
an alien still tracing sacred paths toward home.

Maybe I’m returning, maybe I’m still arriving.
The congregation in my mind shifts and sways,
someone else warming the pew where I once sat,
I don’t say anything now. I simply smile and nod.

The bus slows to a stop,
a quiet hum replaces the hymn,
and in between heartbeats I hear the block—
the bounce of basketballs, the laughter of children,

the smell of sweet plantain still ringing in my ears.

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The bus slows, but the journey does not end.

Returning home, we find both comfort and reckoning—the familiar streets, the smells, the songs, the memories that hold us accountable. The church in Sinners holds that same tension for Sammie. Sanctuary and judgment intertwined, sacred and profane side by side.

As Robert and I move through Sinners together, my hope is that these poems create space to witness the ways redemption and remembrance can coexist, the ways we are called to confront our past while leaning into grace and hoping for a future. The ways home and memories of yesterday, however complicated, shape who we are today.

Returning is not only about finding what we lost.

It is also about honoring those who stayed, the rituals that endured, and the rhythms that continue to carry us forward.

Next, we will explore the Ending and Revelation Scene, where hidden identities surface, survival is forged through transformation, and community bonds reveal their enduring power.

Until then, may this poem remind you that even in the tension of sanctuary and escape, memory, care, and faith continue to guide us.

In solidarity,

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P.S. As always, thank you for reading this edition of Freedom Papers. If you found this piece meaningful, share it with a friend. Let our stories of resilience, justice, and love continue to inspire others, as we all work toward a better, more inclusive future. And write. Write, day and night, my friend. We are running out of time.

Your support gives me the freedom to write from the heart.