Skeletons in the Closet: Part 3 (Louis Toliver Jr-Monroe, LA)

Deep. Deep in the dungeon of the boy’s father’s closet, he stood. The smell finally turned his stomach sour and he vomited. With all his might he gathered the strength to find a way to break the boy free. On a table, filled with many blades and other torture weapons, some keys sat. The boy grabbed the keys and tried each one until he was able to unshackle the emaciated boy.

“The man with the empty eyes! He will find us and kill us!” the emaciated boy fell in to the little boy’s arms.

When the police arrived, so did most of the town, screaming and shouting, validation of his father’s evil torture. Several young boys had been missing for some time. The poor emaciated boy, the father’s son found, was the only boy left. All the others had suffered the most horrible deaths and there was no reason given to the police for the horrible crimes by the boy’s father. He just sat silently as the home was investigated. Several skeletons were removed from the closet in body bags. Parents saw their children’s bones for one last time, before the morgue, before their funerals.

When they finally began to take the boy’s father out of the home, the father made eye contact with his son, for what would be the last time. The boy for the first time saw how empty his father’s eyes were. The boy turned away and ran to his mother, and hugged her tightly. They wept.

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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