The Horror - (Brenna Alyssa Mahn

The Horror - (Brenna Alyssa Mahn - New Orleans, LA)

How do I describe this?

It’s the surprising moment when you hold a two foot alligator in your hands and you realize how soft their skin is and you feel the gentle expansion of their breath against your fingers and somehow it shakes you to your core and you don’t know why. And you start to question how you once laughed at that German documentary maker with his albino crocodiles staring into the abyss.

It’s the reverence you hold for Saint Lucy who plucked out her own eyes with the same nonchalance that you plucked wildflowers as a kid. You consider her your patron Saint. But then one night your partner mumbles in their sleep: My eyes! They’re refusing!

It is the moment in the dream where a man you can’t see but you know is there gives you a sheet of paper blank except for the five words: I hold ominous omniscience obscurely. And then you slide it back onto the slick dark surface.

It’s when you toss feverishly in bed for hours and wake up to find all the walls and ceilings are collapsing in around you. But then you really wake up and your roommates want you to take out the garbage.

But what isn’t it? If nothing else, I know it’s not that night I dreamed the word crepuscular and it brought back memories of sitting on docks just past sunset and listening to the birds that love the waning light most of all.

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

Search This Blog