The Loneliness Disease (Louis Toliver Jr, Swartz, LA)

(A story written from personal experience)

“Loneliness” is a parasitic disease. It is a type of cancer that eats away happiness. BUT loneliness (that horribly deceptive reality) can be destroyed. Though, it can take a long time to be recognized or cured. Here are some ways to recognize if you have the loneliness disease.

When you are most vulnerable, it will come in the form of pleasure and use bodily joys to deceive you. You will begin to focus on OUTSIDE VANITY (looks, money, or drugs) and not INTERNAL BEAUTY (who you are). You will think yourself happy with materialistic things, but you are not.

As you focus less and less on your strengths, as you reject more and more of the gift of life you have been given, you will find yourself measuring your own self-worth against what others do, NOT YOUR OWN POTENTIAL. Your soul will erode, your purpose will be lost, and you will subconsciously want death to take you. And IT WILL.

If at this moment, you are not sure that you want to live or die, where the latter seems like the better option most times, I diagnose you with the loneliness disease. RECOGNIZE THIS NOW! Reach out to some and tell them NOW! I, you, and we have ALL suffered from this disease. You are loved, but this horrible cancer has deceived you into hating yourself.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE, so let’s cure it, together!

Comments

Come Hither (Annette Redmond Walters - Lafayette, LA)

I meant it not this way but the tears just flow and my makeup smearing all the more, leaving behind that familiar filthy residue. I may have begun to drive myself away, dragging you down as well. But it's done, I've flipped the switch and now it's dark once more. How painful is the music to my ears, I can't stand to be alone in it, yet here I am again. I pray you fly back and safely and warmly to me, though I fear I've dug the grave too deeply. As the dirt shifts within my soul, I choke on those loving words I'd meant for you. All the fragments of light I see becoming smaller and I wish to be near you in your embrace that might make me feel the warmth I'm missing. And in reality, I doubt I'd breathe another breath without you. So come hither and quickly soothe my dying heart, you are the only cure I know. I cry and cry again, come hither to heal and love me. Come hither and help me dry my tears.

Let That Fucker Burn (John Chenvert - Napoleonville, LA)

Let that fucker burn. Let the fire crackle like the whips once did— like bone meeting leather, like screams swallowed by the trees. Let the white columns crumble to ash. Not as tragedy— but as truth, unearthing itself from beneath generations of silence. Nottoway is not a mansion. It’s a mausoleum. A lie carved in stone to honor the hands that held the whip, not the backs that bore it. They called it the “White Castle.” A place of beauty. A place for weddings, for photo ops, for pretending that horror can be made elegant if the curtains match the guilt. But no paint can cover what happened there. Blood doesn’t wash out with white linens. And pain doesn’t forget just because you renamed it history. I’m not Black. And I won’t pretend to carry that weight. But I also won’t ignore it. My people—the Guanches—were taken too. Our language silenced. Our land stolen. Our names nearly erased. So yes, I know colonization. Yes, I know what it means to be disappeared. But I also know this— my skin ...

The Peculiar New Room (Nick Perere - Baton Rouge, LA)

A peculiar fourth room has appeared in my three bedroom abode. High ceilings Higher than any ceiling in the house Perfectly pristine whitewashed gallery walls The largest window one can imagine Stretching from floor to ceiling Wide as an ocean’s horizon Revealing the lushest greenery and the bluest skies. I am meant to show masterpieces here. But in one of the corners o f the perfectly pristine whitewashed gallery walls i s an ugly patch of dirt. Dirt darker than charred coal. And the dirt is crawling And multiplying. With their spindly legs and dangly antennae Vermin covered in filth and willingly ready to spread their germs Scuffing the perfectly pristine whitewashed gallery walls. But I have to move on, I have a gallery to exhibit. Smile and act as if nothing is wrong. Come. Enjoy the show. Enjoy the artwork hanging Upon the perfectly pristine whitewashed gallery walls.

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