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Sleeping with God: “Minnie” – Danielle East

I remained too much inside my head; I began to lose my mind. –Edgar Allen Poe

 

The Antebellum

 

I

“Would you marry me,” I begged him to say yes. I spoke the request I had been wanting for so long.

The more the world wanted us apart, the more we gravitated towards each other. The world hates what cannot be comprehended. Beasts and human? An abomination, a sin. The Lord clenched his chest and fell to his knees at the sight of such an un-Godly social experiment. Yet it was not our fault that we fell in love. Like Adam and Eve, we knew right from wrong, but it was temptation that brought us upon one another. It was always temptation that made the most bias and greatest fall and lose strength.

I didn’t care if it was morally wrong to fall for whomever I loved. With all the wrong gone on in the world, how could true love fall in this category? It was only hypocrites, self-loathing hypocrites that defiled everything that was good in the world. Oh how I hate people like that. They go around living their lives with their heads held high, nose at an angle and spiting on everyone who they think is beneath them. It’s just child’s play for them to detest me. I know God hates ugly, but you don’t even have to dig deep in my heart to know I have no love for them.

“Don’t you love me?”

Anyone might think I just hate white folks, except my lover, because they are white and the world is hateful, but I don’t too much like black folks either. None of us will ever leave slavery if we don’t all band together. You don’t need to be self-educated to know right from wrong. Right and wrong ain’t something them book with them English words in it can teach you. Yet, some even know right and wrong, but can’t live by it.

Despite my hatred for the world, there was only one true person that held my heart. My Clarence dear. So loyal to me he is. Greater than any man in the South. I can hardly remember a time when I did not cling to my lover. He always gave me that feeling of hope. Something in him always told me, even though we were in the midst of a troubling time, there was still a beating heart in the world.

But don’t none of them Negroes like me since I have been with Clarence. To what I suspect, it may be jealousy at the least. I believe many of them desire to be with him or if they have to, be raped by him, just something to make them cry at night and wish even more they were dead. Even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to hold a nice conversation with one of them. My whole race card had expired. None of them merely talked to me. I am a black sheep, exiled by my own kind. No one to relate to, no one to braid my hair and discuss whatever the hell with.

“Would you marry me if I was white?”

I burst out with a different approach to make the question more suiting. Clarence I knew loved him. Although he was taller than average, blond-headed and blue-eyed, he had my heart. I know, slave masters kept wenches all the time, but our relationship was different. I was more than just a bed mate. He wasn’t a racist bigot. How unusual and unbelievable it was, it had been too long under his protection to know him in any other way.

To be a person born into the slave trade is as like being conceived at the gates of Hell. My burnt crisp skin that which was cooked by the devil’s roasting pan. The way he fiddled at my hair with his pitchfork to conduct a nappy mess on my head. And the way he placed me in the world at such an un-Godly time.

Being black in America when a system constantly works against you is a curse. My appearance was not a choice but; white folks treat us as though we willingly picked to jump into this lake of fire. Unfortunately, my outward appearance will not change in the years to come. Nor will the way I and all the other Negroes are treated because of it. It’s preposterous that at this time a white man can steal a horse and be hung because of it but kill a black person and live.

But there was no need for me to complain. Unlike my other equals that produced their only means of surviving in the field, I did not work. My master, he did not pay attention to if I got the work done or not. An unusual black woman I was, but I did help out in the kitchen. My hands had not touched a crop since I was eight years old. This is when I took to the kitchen like my mother and those mothers before her.

This is also when I took a liking the Master Clarence; who I only called Clarence. And when he would call, “Minnie, Minnie… You stay out that field. They don’t need you. Too pretty to crop, to pretty to pick.” So I say he took a liking to me too. Harmless or not, his heart was set on me. That’s why I’m set apart from the rest of the Negroes.

To say I was in love with Clarence was just an understatement. What would I do without him, and him without me as his companion? Being with my love Clarence was like sleeping with God.

“Answer me!”

His silence left me with the question of whether he loved me at a different level than he had before. Laying in the lush that be in his master quarters was where I stayed. The rest of the Negroes were outside in the slave quarters. This is where they stayed at night but, many of them did not remain in the homes. But none of them were stupid enough to run away and not come back. Just recently, many that choose to roam the land at night did not come back.

“I…,” he said.

Lying next to Clarence was like being closer God. His whole physique and personality is the opposite of me. The way his hair flows from his scalp to create the cows lick at the front of his forehead. I always wondered why the white man’s hair came out all straight like grass and got real oiled up. And the fact that my hair was dry like all the other Negroes. I prayed for hair like his.

His fair skin that contained little patches of freckles on his face and arms. His jaw was cut and structured like the no one other. His high cheek bones looked like they begged for me to rub my lips upon them. And I enjoyed them, even though sometimes all I could taste was sweat.

His height is what set him apart from the other white men I Knew in Forees County. His height, counted from the scratches marked beside the barn in the field were higher than any man on the plantation. I had never actually measured him but by the height of other men I had seen, I guessed her was seven feet. His bulky body and the awkward way he walked was much different than those of the Negroes. The cotton picker men smelled of hard work and hard days gone by. I preferred Clarence’s aroma to theirs.

He completes me. Whether be a good or a bad thing. His love matters much more.

“How would they react, “Clarence asked as he pushed his hand into my grasp. His eyes my caught my glance and I could see the sparkle in his light brown eyes. “When the time comes and we can. Don’t over think things. Good things come to those who wait Minnie.”

The sound of his voice alone was comforting…But his answer did not relive the empty hole in my heart. I rolled over in bed. Facing away from Clarence. Screeching voices, horrible moans, scratching at the roof of the home and my beating heart were the sounds that filled my desperate soul. I couldn’t stand the sounds, especially that out my heart, but I had too. I starred at the blurry wall. I could not let him see me cry myself to sleep.

 

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Poetry, Prosetry

Perspective of a Man – Karlee Sanders

every sunrise,
every sappy love quote,
could never be as beautiful
as the words her fingers wrote—
in the sky
connecting constellations
to the moon.
maybe it was the way she looked in the night air.
the picturesque white light on her face,
she was all things innocent and as innocuous as she could be.
but when the moonlight fell upon her fair skin,
she was a wildfire of blue and purple mixed with the almost fluorescent light and soft brown in her eyes and hair.
she could’ve outshone the sun.
not a soul on this planet could ever convince me that she was flawed in any way.
the way she touched my hands ever so carefully made me feel intoxicated with the inane butterflies she always rambled about.
when our eyes met that night, we were a part of the same dark sky we wore on our shoulders.
we were stars.
and nothing else mattered.
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Poetry

Something Like Freedom – Brooke Safferman

Hope in a bottle

Spilling out loudly

The sound crashes in our ears

No regrets, never regrets.

 

Shouting from rooftops, from birds’ backs, from the skies

Liberty is a thing that can be purchased

With determination and strength

We have things inside of us we never even knew we had to begin with.

 

Lean on back and close your eyes

The smells wander on in: fresh cut grass and gasoline;

Balloon animals and your dog peeing on the fence

Hey, it’s alright now. Hey.

 

That beautiful moment where you’re at a loss of words

Because you don’t have a thesaurus with you

That could give you another option, another choice for the word that means

Something like freedom.S

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Poetry

I Just Can’t Love You Either – Brooke Safferman

Where is my home now?

Broken hearts more painful than the shifting bones they belong to

Where is my home now?

Unspoken words burning my inner ears like a radio set to static

I have learned to no longer ask any questions that

I would really rather not know the answer to.

 

Your fingers on my collar bone, your fingers in my hair

Exhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

Inhale? Inhale, inhale, inhale!

You beg to yourself,

But all of the oxygen has left the twin-size bed.

And all you have left to breath in is

The truth.

 

Here today, gone tomorrow they always told me

I always thought you’d be the one to prove them wrong

Your smile was bright but your heart was even brighter

Or so I thought.

Or so I thought.

 

At night, when I’m still awake, 50 shades of the-light-is-off-so-why-can’t-I-sleep

It’s been three months, give or take a few days

And the words you said still haunt my dreams.

Inhale.

Inhale.

Inhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

 

But then, one of these nights, an epiphany occurred

In the darkness of the night

I just can’t love you, either.

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Poetry

How to Have a Midlife Crisis When You Are 24 Years Old – Samantha Forsyth

pace back and forth in the kitchen, 

and when he comes home 

tell him that you are unhappy.

he will look hurt but not surprised. 

start to walk away as he says

something like “Things can get better” 

or “I can change”. and for this you will hate him.

say that you will take a walk 

and before he can catch up to you, add ‘alone’

when you get back, find him 

at the kitchen table 

with a glass of wine. sit across from him 

and tell him that you are pregnant. 

before a year, there are medical complications

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

the thought occurs to you 

that you are waiting for something to die.

have a child together and then bury it. 

tell him again that you’re unhappy,

and hate him more for silently 

putting a hand on your cold shoulder

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

start to find excuses not to be with him. 

sit alone at cafes and hope he is having an affair

but when a man offers to buy you coffee, 

let him. have the affair for your husband

wake up early to think about what would 

make you happy and brew

a warm cup of coffee, but not for him.          

don’t say anything when your husband starts 

to play piano or learns your favorite song. 

don’t look at him when he glances at you for approval.

let his fingers trip over the keys 

and let the notes be heavy and dry,

hope they are painful for him to play 

even though you know he will keep practicing.

there wont ever be anything conclusive only a rash of tests

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Poetry

“I think this is maybe gonna stick with me for a long time.” – Matt Gryzduk

You will forget the way the friction burn felt at four years old, forearm dragging along rug

You will remember it all at once when people change their Twitter bios to the same thing at once

You will forget her resting expression because you never knew her well enough

You will forget that you thought about death maybe too much in the past but now never

You will forget birthday cakes, you will forget stories told to you under fluorescent lights

You will forget rewriting your name into her mouth

You will forget that it comes and goes in waves

You will forget that you’re only the second to worst person in general

You will forget that you weren’t thinking but are now very conscious

You will forget her name

But you will remember the friction burn, graft it onto others and like you perhaps they will tell others about the scar it left.

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Flash Fiction

How to Play Hide and Seek Alone – Samantha Foresyth

How to play hide and seek alone

(On Violent Growing Pains)

 

I hope you find a place where you’re ready to open hearts and throats alike with reckless abandon. Unapologetically.

1- Come back to the ruthlessness because I’ll be here waiting for you. Gums bleeding and incisors ready, the doors will all be locked. Meanwhile you’re spitting back at me, growing past milk teeth and tenderness. Unfasten your jaw like you could turn yourself inside out and hide all of these terrible things down your throat.  It’ll be a mouth like mine you’ll outgrow.

2- You can’t tell where it’s hurting and won’t calm down. Won’t ever stop howling. Jaw open too far, too big when there’s nothing left to swallow. And you’re keeping corpses between your teeth. Pick out the splinters of bone without hesitation. Cough up blood that isn’t yours.

I’ve been waiting to be left behind without a look over your shoulder. Just been chewing off dead skin.

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Poetry

Oh, Mother Nature – Karlee Sanders

the sky cries for you, my dear. when you’re sad, so are the clouds.

the sun shines for your effervescent smile.
flowers lift their heads as you walk by.
you’re one with nature, it’s like they look up to you.
or maybe it is you.
controlling them in ways that are impossible to understand.
not with your mind, but your heart.
yes, oh yes.
I can see it in your eyes.
such beauty could only be created by the most darling thing of all,
you.
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Prose

Looking for Lost Words – Elena Barrera-Waters

I think there’s a reason I’ve always loved mornings when no one is awake yet, or sentences that take up half a page, or sitting cross-legged in the dark of my room at one in the morning. There’s something significant to me that comes from being entirely taken away from the world, in the literal sense and also the figurative. I read a book recently that quoted Henry David Thoreau, “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we are lost from the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are in the infinite extent of our relations”, who was able to speak everything I think about in words more elegant, more reflective, more well put together than mine could ever be. And that itself was able to take me away from the world, just a little snippet of words mushed together that were able to make mine feel insignificant, but in just the right kind of motivational way. I write when I’m alone, and that’s always been for a reason. That’s when I see most clearly, that’s when everything blocking my mind suddenly is able to poof into dust that will not return until I am finished. Of course, it’s not just writing, it’s an endless number of things that I do better on my own, no matter how much I sometimes wish and hope and dream of the day I could do everything in the presence of people, and do it well. I can’t yet, though. And that’s ok. It only takes Henry David Thoreau to convince me that, yes, my desire to be taken away and separated from so many of life’s busy tasks is just a part of life, and eventually it will be these little lost moments that help me to discover those words I’ve been hoping to write all along. 

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