Too Many Flowers

Sometimes I feel like I’m praying for the wrong things. 

Before I leave my apartment to brave the New York City streets, I clip my Mount Sinai badge to my belt loop – praying that it protects me from the police officer that will eventually take my life. 

I pray for mercy from the cop that stops me in the street with their gun drawn, committed to pulling the trigger. That they read the words “Medical Student” printed on the ID suspended from my waist and reconsider my worth. 

When they pull the trigger anyway, I pray that I will have amounted to more than a newspaper headline that dissolves the next morning into that officer’s acquittal. 

And that my parents cry less with each passing day, knowing that God is protecting me now in a way that our country never could.   

When I die from police violence, I hope that my name inspires change against this wretched machinery that we fight every single day – and sometimes lose.

I pray that my life cut short can mean something greater than the person I would have become  
And that my funeral has too many flowers, regardless of when I go. 

From the artist: A brief reflection on what I pray for in a country where I am disproportionately likely to die from police violence, and what I hope to leave behind if I die too soon.

Jerrel Catlett is a first-year student in the MD Program. He graduated with a BA in Genetics from Dartmouth College in 2018, and currently lives in New York City where he spends his free time baking sourdough bread and learning how to be kinder to himself.