Pieces of Sasha Massey: #4 - Salvation in Music (Sasha Massey

Pieces of Sasha Massey: #4 - Salvation in Music (Sasha Massey - Lafayette, LA)

At the bottom of a roiling ultramarine sea I look up from the floor. My eyes sting from the salt and darkness. Adjust and then adopt the bioluminescent glow I need to navigate. "You will always be other. Alien. A mimic." It echoes and claws at my heart.
My mind.
Ringing alone in the empty vastness of saltwater. How does a mermaid trapped on land grow her sea legs?
A great yawning moan shudders through tectonic plates. A wail escapes from the pit of my chest reaching decibels not associated with me.
My skin. My curves.
She could never. She doesn't look like what is allowed to have words like opulence and ethereal beauty aimed at her.
Rage smothered in silence and poverty. Shut up in my heart and bones!
You would dare speak up? You would dare stand up and not cower when a rich pale one sibilantly hurls a complaint? Are you some sort of reborn Emitt Till?
Bow. Scrape.
Why are you still standing?
No. Not you. There's too much water in your eyes. A body taking up space and failing to command it.
You are so much a heap or raw nerves than a walking, singing, living thing. Bursting seams. Losing love. Passed aside for less voice and skill attached to the pale ones that happen to "know people".
Numb.
Spent.
Screaming behind my eyes.
Shaking from low blood sugar and adrenaline leaving me. Limbs jangling like electric lines being tested.
Is there a place for us?
Exclusion and discrimination has contaminated the soil here. It has been indoctrinated and inherited like so much of the hoarded wealth here. Generations accustomed to a certain way of living. Granting limited allowance to those just light enough to sit on the porch but never enter.
When I am up. Floating. Finally singing like an avenging angel. A pheonix. I am not just some black girl. It is cruelly brief.

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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