This Dark Water (Sasha Massey

This Dark Water (Sasha Massey - Lafayette, LA)

Each day I sing and perform I count as victory over blatant favoritism and over all a system built to fail us.

Something setup to remind us we are other. Wrong. Ugly. So much that we have to fight to learn a history hidden. And love how we are made while everything around us screams change. Straighten your hair. We tan you bleach....She was a warm brown. Blue undertones.

I remember her.

She sang to me. Her favorite thing was to make me sing along to the Reading Rainbow theme song when I was little. When she was still here.

Her absence hangs over me like an overcast sky. Pushing my feet down harder with every step. The coming rain is pressed to my temples and crowding my mind. Making my knees buckle.

Crying in the shower where no one can hear me but God. Father. Silent. Always listening. Watching me slam into emotional walls, stand up and covered in new scars. Where is she?

Forgiveness is not for them. It is for you. That finally you might stop blaming yourself as you see her face in the mirror. Stare at her picture and memorize her smile frozen in sepia tones. Did she ever wish she could turn to stone when people hurt her like me?

Did she forgive my grandmother for saying it was her fault for being raped at 13 and again in her 20's? I wish I could talk to her.

Instead I have questions. Emptiness. Missing pieces inside me.

Crooked stitches connecting torn seams. Working out until I tore muscles in my chest. Carried down stairs by paramedics. Sitting in an emergency room looking like nothing was wrong with me.

Wondering like you did, "If I left, would anybody care?" We are all forgettable dust being cruel to each other with our quickly disappearing lives.

Eyes overflowing. Ears ringing. Dizzy with panic every morning wondering how I'll pay these bills with this many jobs that combined don't pay worth a cent all by myself.

Up to my neck in this dark water.

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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