JAWN: A Philadelphian Lyric Chris Butler

JAWN: A Philadelphian Lyric

Chris Butler

If you did not already know, jawn is the ultimate Philly word. A champion expression candied creation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). A word bigger than the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and more lit than all The Roots Picnics combined. A word that also means all The Roots Picnics combined. Growing up, my favorite jawn was the golden globs of lava known as cheese whiz flowing across my steak gently nestled in an Amoroso roll.

Jawn always meant anything, but when your recent memories of the city are committed to memory jawn means everything. One memory I recall was in 1998. I was eight back then and my mom’s communist flag red Ford Escort was stolen. I’m sure when these angry young bulls flustered by capitalism spotted my mom’s car they said “this jawn is the one.” Their hearts were cold as Rita’s Water Ice on a January night. The next morning my mom’s brain froze like when you eat that jawn too fast. I was not shocked. This was West Philly, and when they cover people from around here in the Inquirer, they call this jawn “hardscrabble.” Whether it was throwing the haram skinned football, the oompa loompa colored basketball, or iron sharp bullets, unfortunately nobody was simply playing games around this jawn.

In high school when we took racially targeted standardized tests, we prayed that homies and ourselves would pass that jawn. When we smoked that upper decibel kush rolled into a brown skinned Dutch at The Plat we hoped the homies would pass that jawn. One Sunday in summer 2007 I was reminded that I am a crab living in a barrel dressed as an American ghetto. Another crustacean could tell I would soon escape our hood, and he wanted to pull me back in one last time like a trout on a Lake Erie fisherman’s hook. In Philly we call a gun a burner, but when he put that jawn to my chest it made me cold as ice. Luckily after running my pockets he did not heat me up and melt my newly frozen sculpted self. I never called the laws because snitches get stitches, but also because I don’t trust anybody who wears a bulletproof jawn to work.

Jawn is not always sad, one time before college my old head gave me some business tips. He said when I got my tax refund I should invest that jawn on the stock market. But I never listened and I took a pretty jawn from Montgomery County to the Phillies game and blew the rest on sneakers at Ubiq on Walnut Street instead. I guess I just wanted to be Will Smith and Wilt Chamberlain, another Fresh Prince, an Overbook nigga who liked to stunt.

When I graduated from college I became a writer. But really I wanted to be like the word jawn, authentic, unique, and bigger than any New Yorker and the word joint could ever be. More original the Declaration jawn that the colonizers wrote in 1776 telling England to fuck off. As wild as that jawn is, I often wonder what happened to the Lenapehoking jawn that the Natives wrote saying they want Chester, Philly, Camden, Trenton, and Manhattan back. I guess that jawn got lost.

Body Mapping: A Mixed Media Workshop for Survivors and Loves Ones

In June 2021, Apiary’s Poetry Editor and NextFab x Leeway’s 2020 Art and Technology Artistin-Residence Kai Davis facilitated a two-part mixed media workshop for survivors of sexual assault and their loved ones. Through photography, writing, painting, and collage, participants worked in pairs and individually to explore themes of body awareness and intimacy, to document their healing journeys, and to commune safely with fellow survivors. The collages born from these sessions can be found throughout the pages of this issue and on apiarymagazine.com.

Artwork by Anaïs Mateus