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Jean Pool 

Ebony Hagans-Greene

​

Listen here, lil nigga—

I’m finna teach ya ass

how to do laundry.

We gon start wit our wash cycle—

Now, your clothes gon be on

some real

“wade in the water” type shit,

you feel me?

So make sure all valuables

are accounted for.

All your jeans are black,

so make sure to lump them shits together,

turn each one inside out

until all their seams are laid bare,

and loot their pockets ‘cause

we can’t have any riches wasted now,

can we?

Now go ahead and submerge them—

Nah, don’t worry about pushin ‘em down—

they’ll fall to the bottom anyway.

Now—wait, whatchu doin?

You tryna add a white shirt?

To this load?

‘Cause it “missed” the last one?

Nigga, don’t you know

you separate your colors from your

whites?

…This shirt done been washed

with the colors, ain’t it?

Yeah, can always tell—shit’s dingy.

You ain’t even separate this out right—

Got a whole greyed sock

tangled up inside this

white shirt—

whatchu gon tell ya mama?

Throw it out—yes, nigga, throw it out—

it’s disposable.

We’ll get you a new pair of white socks

in no time.

What about the shirt?

It’s fine—one good bleach cycle

and it’ll be good

and white as new.

You won’t be able to tell

it’s been romping around with the colors

at all.

Whatever colors you wash it with tho

gon come out faded,

so them jeans we was talkin bout earlier?

Yeah, they not gon be as black

as they used to be.

Nah, you can’t fix that shit—

they don’t make a product for that yet—

not for this system.

Issa good thing nobody cares about

whether your blacks match or not tho—

I mean, black is black, right? Now—

Wait, nigga when the fuck you sneak bleach

into the load?

Don’t you know them blacks ain’t

neva gon be white, boy?!

No matter how hard you

bleach them shits,

They just gon be pink and red and black and blue—

I hope you like acid wash, goofy nigga

‘cause ya jeans are gonna have an

identity crisis comin out this bitch.

Whatever—black jeans a

hot commodity anyway.

We can get you some more.

Not too many tho—shit’s expensive,

and we can’t just have you

fucking up any more black jeans

outta ignorance.

Look, your cycles almost over.

Make sure you set them whites on delicate—

low heat, low pressure.

Oh, and make sure you hang them coloreds

out to dry.

Ebony Hagans-Greene is a student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. 

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