Lumberyard Love Affair (Adam John Schexnayder

Lumberyard Love Affair (Adam John Schexnayder – Crowley, La)

My heart raced whenever he looked at me. Didn’t he know that I already had our children’s names picked out?? (Rachelle and Jacob) He was everything I had ever hoped for. He was smart, funny, talented, and did I mention he had arms for days?? He got my blood pumping by just shaking his hair from his eyes. I would sometimes bow down in his presence, subtly of course. He would lift on the lumber and I would just die. How do you tell someone that you LOVE them and they don’t even know your name??

As I sat in the jail cell, I realized how ignorant the whole situation panned out to be. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent every day for a year staring at him from only five feet away for hours at a time. Maybe I shouldn’t have followed him home just to watch him cut his grass. Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled, “I LOVE YOU” at him while he was driving a fork lift. Then maybe he wouldn’t have been startled. Then maybe he wouldn’t have dropped three bundles of sheetrock onto a defenseless old lady. Then, just maybe, I wouldn’t have tried to kiss him (he thought I was attacking) while he was trying to remove the sheetrock from the old lady.

Regardless, I found my first love. He was smart, funny, talented, and did I mention that he had arms for days?? I may not have known him, but he was pretty to look at. And isn’t that what love is about?

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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