PHOENIX: The Science of Restoration (Taylor McCleery Sloey-Lafayette, LA)

You got burnt to the ground sitting on a curb outside of an educational supplies store.
On a Tuesday.
Between his evening shift and weekly excursion for discounted beers at the corner bar with the guys.
The scene felt reminiscent of the summer you sat on the sidewalk falling in love with each other’s words til 4 in the morning.
Sting. Burn.
You see,
the elaborate surprise birthday parties 
candlelit dinners prepared
and hidden notes on bicycle spokes 
no longer compared to the prospect of brief international travel and French pussy.

Matches lit to the tone of 
“I can’t explain but you’re just not enough anymore”
Hissed from a tongue you once knew like your own. 
Spark
Flame
Fire ablaze
You fell apart.
Amorphous ash.
And like the phoenix, was forced to slowly collect your charred carbon chemistry
And reassemble it into plumage, or a forced smile
“I’m really doing fine… considering”

Mythology misled us
The resurrection of the phoenix is not a one-time event
but rather you rebuild yourself again every day.
Some days with a wingspan malformed and misshapen
But we build ourselves again

And it is this process by which we are superhuman
By which we are magic
We are vulnerable
We are resilient
We are stupid enough to love again
We are New Orleans
We are Haiti
We are Japanese island cities in the center of Tsunamis
We are Hiroshima
Vietman
We are ephemeral springs, and volcanic lavas
We are Ralph Nader and we just keep running for election through the GREEN PARTY
We are impossibly naïve and skeptical
But we rebuild

And sometimes this process occurs in the form of crying for six days 
And sometimes it occurs in the form of putting your mouth on every man and gin & tonic in town
And that’s ok
Because the fires are 
Are inevitable and unavoidable

But like the forest
We return more lush, 
More diverse 
and more beautiful each time we burn.

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 ...

Lunatic (Lily Lechler - New Orleans, LA)

“Lunacy” comes from the moon, Who cycles through brilliance and darkness Bipolarity’s patterns are not so easily assumed Opposites not so well harnessed Who cycles through brilliance and darkness? The girl who sits in bed, wrestling with Opposites. Not so well harnessed As she thought, her brain gives reason the slip The girl who sits in bed, wrestling with Her body, depressed, her thoughts manic. As she thought, her brain gave reason the slip And gives the gift of life in a dreamlike panic. Her body depressed her thoughts. Manic Lunacy comes from the moon And gives the gift of life in a dreamlike panic Bipolarity’s patterns are not so easily assumed

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