Wormhole (Annette Redmond Walters-Lafayette, LA)

Trapped in a wormhole that keeps replaying , like the music in my head, I can feel it repeating every time but can’t pause the show or the spinning in my mind. I live on a physical world and with it comes a physical pain, a pain too great to keep me moving down here yet not strong enough to keep me from that spiritual plane, the one that leads directly to you. I cannot always see you, hear you, touch you, but I know you are there and you are real. I’ve felt you fill me before, a glimpse of true life, true love with no anger, sadness, or worry and most of all no pain. I step among the fallen and I suffer because I am just like them – broken, beaten, and too far from your touch so that my fingers keep slipping through your hands and I feel myself sliding down, down into replay mode but I just call to you and I know, I know you are right there and holding me patiently through it all. Lucky me. What I wouldn’t give to be in sync with you, full of love, of joy and giving it to all who ask and even those who don’t. And though I often slip and fall, get tangled in the blankets of darkness and knowing evermore that I’ve had this dream before which is sometimes sweet but sometimes scary. I know there is a reason for it all and I trust you. I do. And I always will.

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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