The Sunflower Girl Magazine: Intimate Fears

“intimate fears..”

the sunflower girl collective presents better late than never

THE SUNFLOWER GIRL MAGAZINE

MARCH 2020.

letter from the editor, baby Hello, So TSGC came to my fingertips the summer of 2018. I launched our Instagram page on August 4th, 2018 and have been active ever since; that was the Jersey summer after my junior year of college, where I experienced the biggest trials of my adult life in 2 grueling semesters. . TSGC is a Leo sun, Scorpio moon, and Scorpio rising. We are a poetic space designed to champion femme and gender non conforming voices across the country but with mad love to the east coast. Shout out to Jersey.

After a quick, informal breakthrough meeting with a family friend & therapist before heading back for my senior year at George Mason University... there was a deliberate reorganization of my passions. TSGC became more than my baby, more than my outlet, more than my poetry, playlist, podcast and some pictures. It became my energy source, my battery, my charger. Words meant things for me again. Language began to shape and reshape my reality.

So that being said, I’m glad you’re here.

Throughout 2019, TSGC grew and grew, reaching 300 followers in May, publishing Gift from Virgo, and continuing its support for local Northern Virginia sunflower girls and artists. In August 2019, we released our first print magazine titled ​The Anniversary Edition​, to celebrate our first birthday. The Anniversary Edition was a family affair, featuring works from some of the most enigmatic artists I know like Summer Knights, Emma Bleker, Alekhya Tallapaka, Anise Jeremiah, Izzie Larson, Anise Jeremiah, Christy Caudle, Jenae Barnes, Teng Teng Chin, Kasey, etc. The theme of The Anniversary Issue was more of a celebration of our TSGC Values, which are listed on the next few pages for your convenience and curiosity. Artist leadership is what shifts and propels cultures. Sunflower Girls are a dynamic group of women who see themselves as leaders in their communities, ready and willing to negotiate with fear, do the work and make a difference at all costs. I have an army of writers, poets, artists who work from their heart and contribute what they can. Capitalism be damned.

So I mean it when I say thank you for being here. Nothing has ever meant more to me.

Yours, Mernine Tevna Ameris (Founder of The Sunflower Girl Collective)

S.U.N.F.L.O.W.E.R.S. 1. Stand, if you are able, proud.

2. Unleash it. Whatever it is.

3. Note your courage and integrity.

4. Follow your heart. Learn to fall.

5. Love, always.

6. Overcome obstacles.

7. Welcome positivity.

8. Enjoy life.

9. Radiate light.

10. Social justice and art intersect.

editor acknowledgements

thank you to my parents (aries mom + taurus dad)

thank you to my sister (my favorite sagitterrorist)

thank you to my roommates for dealing with a grumpy creative dealing with writer’s block

thank you to hulu, jersey shore, and america’s next top model

thank you to all the great people at the DC office of RTI (especially the C.I.A)

thank you to season 49 of the george mason university forensics team, always

thank you to my Aloha English students, all love from 2nd to 7th grade.

thank you Walgreens, she knows why

alright, now start the show.

our tsfgmag contributors ADEOTI QUADRI ADEKUNLE ANISE JEREMIAH CARLA CHRISTINE THOMPSON DIMITRIS SOUKOULIS JP HARP KASINATOR LAUREN MAY MATTISON MERRIT MELANIE MONJI MERNINE AMERIS THOM SIEFERT

Series: Feed my Ego | Title: Circe. | Figuring Model:Daniela Pezzi | Artist: Dimitris Soukoulis

Casual Sex Shouldn’t Make You Feel Guilty Because That’s Not The Part You’re Doing Wrong.

Mernine Ameris​ on ​Jan 23

A​pproaching February means Valentine’s Day…that good old capitalist holiday of love. It

seems the fear of intimacy is still on our minds at TSGC. For context, I am a 22 year old queer black woman, Gen Z-millenial cusp, who has never been in a relationship before. I’m not rare or anything special, there’s probably dozens of girls like me around you right now. Coincidentally, like any millenial-Gen Z, I’m pretty spiritual and I just got my palm read. It seems, according to my skin, that traditional, monogamous, love isn’t going to be in the cards, not for some time anyway.

But let it be known, I’m not complaining. I’m used to freedom, despite how much affection I crave. I don’t like the person I become when I do get this attention anyway, paranoid that it will be taken away in an instant or just gluttonous. It seems I am always demanding more from my partners, either verbal or nonverbal so…whether I actually say it or not.

Straight up, some of the meanest words I’ve ever heard said to me or that I’ve heard come out of my own mouth come out of arguments with people I had these close but transactional relationships where all we worry about is what the other person can give. Or how the other person is giving in comparison to what we’re giving and getting.

There was never any concern for the other persons wellbeing or feelings, only selfishness which led to not listening and avoiding the issues that had initially been around all along. Talking to casual partners, no matter how casual and close you are, can be scary and vulnerable. The reactions towards that vulnerability tend to be negative and unregulated and responding to these reactions is a skill that requires practice. For someone who hasn’t been in a committed relationship, casual relationships have helped me grow in ways that I forget to be grateful for.

As​ that chapter ends, I just kind of hope I never encounter or become an unappreciative partner again. And I know that I am better for it because I learned a few things about compassionate and empathetic casual sexual relationships.

I learned casual sex is great. It’s extremely possible to have casual sex with someone and have your feelings for them exist with negotiated meaning. I learned sex is better when you have feelings for someone but those feelings can be discussed and negotiated to fit the current dynamic. Emotions and feelings and desire can be present without being romantically and suffocatingly intimate. I learned what I can and can’t handle, what I do and what I don’t want to see.

source: createherstock

Not everybody wants complete monogamy in their early 20’s and that’s okay. Relationships like this with no forced dating pressure are beyond great and some of the most comfortable and understanding ones I’ve been in. Having sex positive friendships and friends with benefits make adulthood so much easier. Especially when going through periods of life where it’s impossible to commit to anything but yourself and things that serve you, mostly for the sake of my physical and mental health. I have sexual needs, that should be recognized instead of suppressed, and I want someone to fulfill them without all the exhaustive emotional labor that I or someone else may require.

According to NYU professor, Dr. Zhana Vhrangalova, some of the ways to eradicate casual sex stigma and mean-spiritedness from your own casual sex relationships, can start at sexual initiation.

She states in Mel Magazine, “at the end of the day, make women feel good about what they did.

Cuddle and reaffirm that what they did was great. Stay in touch. Communicate. Make women feel like they’re human beings who you interact with and care for in a casual way, without commitments and without leading them on with ideas you don’t have intentions of carrying out. If our culture ​is going to have a lot of casual sex, a lot of education needs to be done in order to teach people how to do it well.”

Ca​ sual sex is as old as humans. As casual partners, we aren’t entitled to pretend

monogamy, but realistic respect. If a partner isn’t respecting you, your boundaries, or your

relationship…it is time to talk about it. Ending or thinking about taking a break from a casual or even a committed romantic relationship doesn’t make you a failure.And more often than not, that’s when the reactions start to come in. You get called every name in the book, tears start building in the back of your throat, and you run the risk of being told that you made someone you care about feel bad, belittled, and betrayed all on your own. That’s a shitty feeling, all together, and terrifying to go through alone.

For me, it manifests as feeling stupid and humiliated, like I have a terrible intimacy GPA and my teacher just posted the grades on the door.

source: createherstock

We grow up in a world that tells us it’s bad to have casual sex, especially for women. But it extends to men, too, who feel guilty for fulfilling the stereotype of “the asshole” or go around believing that women are programmed to want relationships with them, whether that is actually the case or not.

A lot of the time, men refuse to provide or prioritize intimacy in casual sex because they are afraid if they did show more passion, women would get attached and want something more, which sounds like a projection to me. That kind of stuff happens as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

source: createherstock

The more men, usually cis-hetereo straight men, withhold, the more some women tend to crave.

This occurs because there is less of what makes the relationship good. Some of us are luckier than others, to be instilled with less shame and guilt and suppression. Sex negativity, social disapproval, mental health, and stigma all work against the sex positive future we’re building for our children and families. If you are someone who has casual sex and enjoys it, you have to own that. And you should celebrate that by finding people around you who are going to accept and love you. And once you do find the casual sex partner who is going to accept and love you without guilt, pressure, disrespect, emotional abuse or unrealistic expectations, you should celebrate each other in your own ways, and then again tenfold. The best gift is being present, staying in the moment and being honest with someone.

Sex is healthy. Sex is natural. Sex is healing. Sex is risky. Sex doesn’t have to make you a bad person, no matter how many times you want to have it or don’t want to have it.

Sex can be addictive but sex, the activity itself, can’t taint you or anyone else; it cannot make you a worse person than you already are or could become. Sex can’t and it does not control you.

Sex should be fun and not forced or draining. Sex is normal, an individual, mildly often human experience. Sharing that with someone requires respect and full acceptance of who you are. Casual sex is only wrong if you let casual sex make you feel small, instead of the big part of someone else’s life that they’ve allowed you to be.

Loving is human.

And you deserve to have good sex.

ELECTRO SWINGING IN TOWN

by Thom Siefert

walking down the cobbled streets you get tired from the forest of neon candles. it made you raw, skinless, like a cunt on a long night out. sensitive.. in a bad way on a bad day

You meet with your boyfriend in a nifty place where all the waiters are passive aggressive playing mind games with you probably french who should I blow to get a fucking drink ?

Your boy he talks about his job maybe a raise you don't know you don't care glad you're safe from the rain you wait for the right time to tell him to fuck off do you need him? but you don't move. you're afraid afraid ​he​ doesn't need you.

heavy clouds hurried upon the iron scrappers you too hurry to find shelter in a bookstore or a supermarket for you know acid rains are sea salt and lime on an open wound

shotgun

ashtray

there’s nothing like watching a man roll. have him prove that he’s good with his fingers, mouth, and green all at the exact same time. her mind, racing, fell off track. facing two joint ventures, she can feel them both under the same influence, suspended underneath similar spells.

in a world not too far where she’s from too many black mothers see their black sons burn. for something politicians now deem profitable. revenue starting to pave the streets with green. in this world, the tanks are full and you're always in the driver's seat. reagan’s flag waves, high. the troops look for a trapdoor, still waiting on 40 acres and a mule in these backwoods.

coughing a little bit, all of the air in the room evaporates somewhere in another life, deliberate deja vu, a pyromaniac palpitation, she swears she’s heard this heartbeat before.

paranoia paints this image but there’s nothing like watching a man fill you up with smoke, take you on a ride sitting passenger to all of this fear with a mirror image of the boys behind bars. a disappearing act. in the making.

they lock eyes with the doors wide open. lips asking if they could knock. he beckons her closer, noses touching, he opens his mouth with a white owl kiss the world’s most romantic dragon.

(m/t/a)

Sleeping Alone

by Mattison Merritt

There is a serial killer in my neighborhood. I am hesitant to call him a ‘serial killer’ because he has only killed two people and they were both white. If the victims had not been white, people would just be like, “Oh yeah, that’s living in Chicago!” I’ve used that joke at some open mics and it killed so if you didn’t laugh, let me know. I’ll cut it from further routines.

I’ve started sleeping in my boyfriend’s bed because he lives on the fourth floor of an apartment in a safe neighborhood. My neighborhood, as you know, is not as safe and the first of two doors into my building doesn’t lock. One locked door will not stop the man who has already shot two people less than a mile from my apartment, execution style, from coming into my room. This serial killer in my neighborhood could easily sneak in, stand at the end of my bed, and wait for me to sense him. He could make me beg for my life and eventually shoot me right through the face at close range. This would make my head explode and force my family to have a closed casket funeral for me.

My boyfriend’s apartment is in a safe neighborhood and his doors have many locks. I feel more safe in his bed because he is another person to help me fight off any serial killer who might show up in the night or at least be someone to pull me back into reality when the coats on the door become demons. Another body helps, even if it has to sleep with its back to me.

I come up with escape plans when I can’t sleep. I can hide underneath my bed and hold my breath. I can use the floor lamp as a weapon, it’s long enough that I wouldn’t have to get close to the intruder.

In the storage closet between my sister and I’s room in my family’s first home, there was a board covering an opening to the vents. Until my mom moved out in 2016 in the heat of a divorce, that was my last-resort hiding place if someone was murdering my entire family. I’ve thought a lot about staying thin so I can always hide in a clothes hamper.

A few summers ago, I lived with my post-divorced mom in her post-divorced Nebraska home to save money. I was also her free dog-sitter when she went on her June/July work trips. My mom lives in the perfect post-divorced home. It’s a three-story, slightly-above-basic house in an absolutely-basic neighborhood. The scariest thing about my mom’s neighborhood is the amount of middle schooler’s on scooters. When my mom left for trips, I would spend my early evenings cooking pizza in my underwear, pretending I was a 30-something, successful, single businesswoman who owned the house. When it was dark, the neighborhood around me would melt away. I was

transported to Amityville or Texarkana and I was Matty, a broke, 22-year-old scaredy cat. I lay awake in my bed and imagine how long I would be able to fend off the towering masked man who would inevitably break into the house, slit my throat, watch me bleed out, and sleep next to my corpse. A boy in my 6th grade class once told everyone about a killer who would murder his victims and then sleep in their beds with the dead bodies. This is a real, genuine, valid fear.

I’ve reacted mostly positive in stressful situations. I fight, fly, and only a few times I freeze.

Sometimes, my brain focuses, I take control, and react the best possible way anyone could ever imagine. I was in a car accident once, T-boned on the drivers side, spun around, and shot into the ditch in front of us. My highschool boyfriend (I’ve had a lot of boyfriends, let’s get that out of the way.) screamed the moment we were still. The first thing I said was slow. “Jon. Where’s the weed?

We need to hide the weed.” Without his help, I got it out of the glove compartment and put it under the brush next to the car. I managed to protect myself and get out of this situation unscathed. I know it wasn’t a murderer who wanted to gut me, but I kicked ass with adrenaline.

I still spend so much of my time in the dark preparing for something horrible. When I’m sleeping alone, I lie in bed staring at the door I’m expecting to creak open and expose the Babadook/ring girl/Freddy Krueger. I don’t trust myself to be able to protect myself. I stare at the door and wait for something stronger, bigger, more evil to take me in the most brutal way. I stay up all night, unable to calm down until I get so exhausted from fear that I fall asleep for about two hours until it’s light out again. In the morning, I am baffled by how ridiculous I was the night before. It feels like I’m mad at someone else for keeping me awake. Matty! You crazy bitch! No one is going to kill you! No one cares enough to kill you!

When I’m spending the night at my boyfriend’s apartment, after we get wine drunk and watch a scary movie on his couch, we crawl into his bed with plenty of room to hide under just in case. I whisper over and over to him that I love him and that I’m with him because I love him. And I am.

And I do. But I can’t go back to staying up all night and hating myself in the morning. I can’t go back to shallow breaths as I watch for any sign of movement at the end of my bed. I can’t go back to being afraid. Plus my student loan payment is due next week and that’s my scary thing for right now. ☀ Mattison recently graduated from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln where she received the 2018 Stover Award for Short Story. She has been published or is forthcoming in Litro Magazine, Essay Daily, and Womanly. She is a comedian, writer, and works in social media for real money. You can find her thoughts on George Strait, crime fiction, and Nebraska politics on twitter as @24merrittgold.

feel by jp harp

in my purest form, I feel you somewhere around, floating waiting and embracing my stagnation, you feel me. my frustration with my intuition my misplaced dedication to the search outside for the satisfaction no one will ever reach until I can see the wonder of you inside this tide swimming, thriving, and grounding, this quest to the cosmic infinity.

FOR THE MAN OF A FEW WORDS, THE SAME ONE I WROTE TOO MANY FOR:

by carla

once again, it’s past midnight and I’m still trying to write about you.

my pages will ask me what you felt like, I’ll tell them that you were cold October air, honesty, and writers block.

They’ll ask how you look, I’ll tell them about Christmas lights and the most beautiful eyes staring right back into yours.

I’ll tell them you sounded like a love song that was never written for you

and then I’ll finish the poem with the truth; I’ll say that I wanted you the most because you were something no one else could have

and that you left with a piece of my heart that I could never grow back quite the same, but I wouldn’t want anybody else keeping it.

(- 410 days, 9840 hours!! ur gone gone)

GETTING SALEM BACK by thom seifert teach me your inner laws

show me the pictures you took

those that drive you

and pinned up your walls

the mother fire inside

faces and places

and show me how

dates and actions

how should I sing and dance 'round it,

all weaved with red linen « what's this ? » I ask

talk to me about your trials

« It's a plan... »

when you found yourself kneeling

and

head down

you'd throw a knife

because

in the middle of your spider target

somehow

where it scars a mouth

they prosecuted you

« ...to get it all back,

using other words

and fix everything »

unknown tablets of stone to which you never prayed nor bowed,

TREASURE by adeoti quadri adekunle beyond this planetI planted a seed of love in your eyes, it is growing now,it will be fruitful soon, the lucky will lies for both of us. all for you dear; the margin is yours, you own it because I own you, you are mine, you deserve to be treated like Niagara region, you are the portrait in my global thither. your beauty is evergreen like pasture, your nature is seldomly pure like gleaming sky in the morning, whereas you are the ology behind the glittering cloud at breakfast, but no one knows, they are blind, the sky itself did not notice, until when your skin bleached, globetrotting in fur, further to east, west, south and north, the fact revealed how riches the world spray you apartheid amidst this planet. nothingness is important like you in me, even home is far out of it, when I have you, I will build a mansion to live in your body, likewise a shrine to worship your colouring eyes and your gigantic beautiful eyes every moon, soon, you will become my goddess, my tithed ancestor to kneel my wheel for, you will, will become the ambient slides turaco in my father's house, believe me, I will snatch peacock as servant for you in the market of beauty.

GROWING PAINS by melanie monji

My little sister is turning 16 this year.

I’d like to say that I am happy about the fact that her days are not clouded by boys, but clouded by men willing to give in to the fact that they think her skin is a disappointment is no better.

Our grandmother taught us to never let the enemies get close to our skin.

She meant boys back then, but her words have found comfort in grown men.

We. As Black girls. Should be chasing away boys and not outrunning bullets before we have reached the age of eighteen.

But instead dreams are silenced by the screams of fathers Who would rather let their daughters date before they let her reach a certain age in her blackness.

These days, growing up is no longer defined by your actions.

Teenage girls were once more worried abut when their parents would let go of the whole “Group dating” thing, But little do they know, it is more of a rule now than it has ever been before.

Because running to the store for Skittles has turned into running for your life on battlefields And black minds are taught to conceal their every move.

Being a 16 year old girl should not feel like running away.

The only thing you should be running away from as a 16 year old girl is growing pains.

☀

Editor’s Note: ​Intimacy has 2 definitions. One is

For many, our relationship with our natural hair is

the state of being intimate and the other is

marked by a warm friendship developing through

something of a personal or private nature. In her

long association, something personal with all of its

essay, author Christine Thompson discusses the

girlhood.

modern state of feeling beautiful with kinky hair.

In other words, intimate.

“Beautiful, for better or for worse, often means loved.”- Your Fat Friend

☀

The Kink in My Hair

by Christine Thompson

M​

ost recently, the current titleholders of three of the major pageant systems in the

country, Miss USA, Miss America, and Miss Teen USA, are all black women – making pageant history. Miss USA and Miss Teen USA having won their respective national pageants with their natural curls. As a black woman who currently competes in pageants, and has for years, this was a monumental win for black women who compete in pageants everywhere. I, personally, remember celebrating with another friend of mine who I competed in Miss Alabama USA with, about what this win meant for us, and representation in a community, though rewarding, has maintained strict, European beauty standards.

While other non-black women have the luxury of wearing their natural locks without a second thought, for us, it is daring to “bare it all” in a public place, let alone a professional environment.

This, in turn, has robbed black girls of their sense of freedom, and the right to exist in their natural state without fear of criticism, from others and in some cases, themselves.

With the recent incidents of young black girls being sent home for their natural hair, and adult women being told that their natural hair is unprofessional for the workplace, we must recognize that white supremacy is fighting back on the natural hair movement.

Though we might be making strides in the beauty community, we are still fighting an uphill battle in workplace and educational environments. This is not to discount the success we have made in achieving some level of representation in the beauty industry, but the fight is continuing in other aspects of our life as well.

I recently sat down with Kenya Harris, a junior; and president of Triota, a women’s studies honors society, and Public Relations chair of Blend – a diverse and inclusive organization on campus that seeks to “promote genuine intercultural relationships”, and a member of the Black Scholars program at the University of Alabama.

We had an honest conversation about outside perceptions of natural hair in our society, and what it means to heer.

“I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, I love that ethnic hair on a black woman,” but do they necessarily think it’s beautiful and value it? I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all,” said Harris.

When the conversation shifted to representation in the beauty community, Harris provided some illuminating insight that is most often overlooked when we talk about black hair representation. Yes, we have made great strides in the beauty community regarding representation for natural hair. For instance, we have seen major campaigns featuring natural hair such as Ulta, Dove, Covergirl, and Pantene. With prominent celebrities such as Janelle Monae, Zendaya, and Lupita N’Yongo, and other black models and celebrities sporting their natural hair on multiple international beauty campaigns, the natural hair movement is taking the beauty community by storm. But Harris contends we take a closer look.

“There needs to be more representation for black hair in the beauty industry, but also a focus on 4c hair specifically, because I think there’s been more representation for natural hair as a whole, but it’s the 3c loose, mixed girl, light brite curls. And most black women don’t have that,” said Harris.

Harris’s words ring true for a lot of black women. The purpose of fighting for representation in the media is so that we and other young black girls can see a reflection of ourselves portrayed as beautiful to the public.

When we see only a certain type of natural hair represented, it feels like a compromise between the beauty industry and the black community: “here, we’ll give you representation, but only our acceptable, palatable, version of it.” ☀

A​

commonly shared experience amongst black women is the desire to have straighter hair

when they were younger. Though many girls with curly hair had this experience, for black girls, it goes deeper than just wanting what other people have. Natural hair has played a significant role in black history throughout the generations, and was even used as a form of rhetoric resistance for the pro-black movement during the Civil Rights Era. With this historical context to hair that no other race has, this widespread desire of young black girls to have straighter hair has serious implications.

I had a conversation with Caitlin Jones, a sophomore and member of the speech and debate team on campus, a double major in History and Spanish, and a member of the Pre-Law Student Association.

This time, we had a more personal talk about her own journey with wearing her natural hair in school and the negative comments directed at her: “In high school, I remember a white teacher saying, “Your natural hair would be so cute if you just straightened it, and I was like...what?” said Jones.

We talked more in depth about the mindset we had as children and how that still plays a part in who we are today. Like myself, Harris, and many other black girls, Jones spent her childhood pleading with her parents for chemical treatments to straighten our hair: “Honestly when I was a kid, I begged my mom for a perm, and she would not put one in my head...I just kind of thought it was the thing to do. I didn’t see a lot of representation...when it was advertised it was always about taming or straightening it in a way,” said Jones Jones’s experience challenges us to reflect on what we mean specifically when we talk about black hair representation. While there is, of course, nothing wrong with black girls wearing their hair straight, if it is the only black hair representation black girls see, it is still delivering a negative message. Simply pushing for black hair representation is not enough - for black girls, it is important that we demand to see accurate depictions of black women in every state we exist in: natural and 4c hair especially.

☀

B​

oth Jones and Harris expressed the varying levels of vulnerability they feel when

wearing their natural hair - especially in white-dominated spaces. This summer, I made a decision to wear my natural hair completely out for the first time in about nine years.

Leaving the hair salon, I was nervous, overwhelmed, and anxious of what to expect from my peers and even myself. I remember looking at myself in the mirror for the first time when it frizzed up completely after the gym. Though I try to accept every version of myself as beautiful, I am usually with weave, makeup, and acrylics.

I was surprised that I could appreciate this version of myself that was distant, but familiar, like a relative I hadn’t seen since childhood: A return to my natural state.

It was in this moment, I was reminded of the endurance that was within me all along, as strong as the tightness of my Haitian, 4c coils. Growing out of me all these years, my curls were a manifestation of the strength growing within me all this time.

I gazed at myself, in awe at nine years worth of strength that brought me through a heartbreak, the death of a parent, a constant battle with body image, and so much more. For so long, I hid them, damaged them, tried with every effort to change their pattern, their shape, texture, and force. Like me, my hair had its moments of weakness, but with time, it was able to repair itself, and continue to grow, each time stronger. In this moment, I am reminded that, naturally, my hair transfigured through the damage.

And so have we.

untitled 1/30 by lauren may

weight ache heavy high feel light fear not soul small whole still heal all goal still

untitled 2/30

by lauren may

maybe the point isn’t to let any of this go maybe there is room for everything when I am as strong and infinite as everything that is maybe we get stuck because we believe all of this can’t coexist

FROM WORM TO PROBE

by Thom Siefert

the weight of your fathers' actions and the decisions you don't know you're making, unyielding and tearing me apart,

I understood it all how cells talk and transform how finger tips convey emotions how dots turn into lines between your electric neurons that are also the walls of a house in Kansas and a Roman bridge back in Inverness,

I am conscious of it all I am no super-being I am no spirit animal I don't need to be any of it,

I saw it all

I am sacred and loving blank canvas of linen I am the alpha proto-human mind I am the ever lasting wound I am the abyss I am a God I am a woman

transparent and flowing in an endless looping picture show fed with feelings and sceneries from an infinite number of young and old and stillborn skulls, I heard it all the screams of a billion mothers echoing within a gunshot the words of a wise tree-granny in Amazonia discussing the whys and the whos, the branches crackling in the fire place and under the foot of a fat Conquistador, I felt it all the relieving rain of joy in an ocean of pain, I watched my joints swollen and blue and the weight of the past

silver springs by carla

i am so afraid that when you see me you do not see a river that leads to a magnificent horizon but rather a stepping stone in that river to becoming the right something for someone. i am so terrified that you see me as only something that cuts in between your misery and happiness and she’s waiting for you somewhere on the other side. you hear that darling laugh of hers, teasing you to step off that old rock and come find her

first aid. after you have left someone bleeding out, with raw flesh ripped open they will love you still if you just show them a bandaid. (m/t/a)

DILSEY

by ANISE JEREMIAH NEGROES WHO OWNED SLAVES b​ y​ CALVIN D. WILSON

Popular Science | November 1912

THE story, in its completeness, of the existence previous to the civil war, of a large number of free negro slaveholders in America has become for our generation practically a lost chapter. The fact has been almost forgotten. The generations that were familiar with this condition have gone.

The full data have never been collected, and probably never will be in an exhaustive way.

Much material on this subject has perished through the burning of court houses, state houses and similar depositories of documents.

In certain of the states this condition was at times forbidden by law, but often continued in spite of the law, tolerated or ignored; the laws upon the subject also varied from time to time.In some instances they owned members of their families, as husbands their wives and children, and in other cases the wives owned husbands and children, and again children owned their parents, in order to protect them or ultimately to set them free; the complicated legislation in regard to free negroes at various times and in various places often made it difficult for a free member of a family to manumit the others; sometimes when so

liberated they had to be sent out of their state.

A large number were owners of slaves without regard to relationships and held them for service and bought and sold them just as did the white people.

Certain of these blacks owned from one to a dozen slaves, while others had in servitude from sixty to a hundred or two hundred men, women and children. These were to be found, at one period or another, in nearly all, if not quite all, the colonies or states where slaves were held. In some counties they were numerous, while in others they were unknown. It did not therefore seem unnatural for a negro in America to hold his brethren in bondage, when he had become free and able to buy his fellows.

The black man in America has always been imitative, and his desire to do what the white man did doubtless also influenced him in this matter. William Pitt, the younger, in a speech, April 2, 1792, in the British Parliament, on the abolition of the slave trade, said, "Some evidences say that the Africans are addicted to the practise of gambling; that they even sell their wives and children and ultimately themselves.”

This is the story of Dilsey Pope.

ACT ​ONE​ | SCENE ​ONE

(A carriage rolls on stage. In the back of the carriage, there are three girls. One of the girls has her head in another’s lap and is stirring in her sleep. The other girl is yawning with a head in her lap and another one of the girls is wide awake. We see her holding a Bible and talking to herself. She is small, surrounded by soft blankets and threads.)

DILSEY Dear God, it’s me, Dilsey. I know it morning and I’se only mostly talk to you at night but I need a lil extra help today. Please watch over Samuel til I can get there. Make him happy to see me. Thank you for listening to me today and for all you’ve already done for me. I’se grateful. ..I promise.

MILLY Dilsey?

DILSEY Yes, Milly?

MILLY We’re almost in Charleston. How’re you feeling?

DILSEY Well...I don’t know. I just hope dat he’s safe.

MILLY God is good. He’ll watch over Samuel til you can.

DILSEY Well me and God done disagreed over Samuel plenty o’ times before.

MILLY I’se understand dat, Dilsey but Georgia meant startin’ over, ‘member? Forgiveness is practiced. And God chose well when he chose you two. You both was so young back den.

You can’t expect much from da stupid.

DILSEY (snort & a laugh) Especially men these days.

MILLY Exactly.

DILSEY Milly? You ain’t tell no one back in Georgia about Samuel and...everything last couple years, right?

MILLY I ain’t tell a soul. I promise. Grace here, she my only friend, and she too young to know such things.

DILSEY (sigh of relief) Thank you.

MILLY But hell, if I was a man dese days, I’se have me like three girlfriends too.

DILSEY (​laughs​) Hell, maybe more.

MILLY (​giggles​) Now don’t let yo husband hear you say dat now. Get it out your system before Charleston.

It’ll all be fine. Now did we bring all da dresses for the girls back at Mr. Butler’s?

DILSEY Yes, yes, Milly.

MILLY Alright, good.

DILSEY And...you think you mean what you said?

That God chose well for Samuel and me. We only been married for dese past six months and it’s starting to feel different.

MILLY I did, Dilsey. (​runs a hand in her hair​) DILSEY (​nods​) God musta chosen well if it gave me you, Milly. Thank you for coming with me.

MILLY You get ready now, Mrs. Pope.

DILSEY (​looks out the carriage window as the carriage comes to a stop​) Okay, we’re almost there. (​They’re in the middle of town square. People are walking back and forth in the square.

There is a sign pointing towards the Julius

Springer Bank Auction. ​MILLY ​pushes DILSEY ​forward, out of the carriage.)​ MILLY Grace is going go in witcha. I gotta go drop off the Butler dresses. The carriage and I will probably meet ya but if you finish up early here, you can meet me there, with Sam, okay?

Grace! Return to the Butlers by supper!

GRACE (​croaking, rubbing the sleep out of her eye​) Okay, Aunt Milly. We gotta be back by tomorrow morning, I know, can we go in now?

DILSEY (​scrambles out of the back of the carriage with G ​ RACE​) Alright, I got it, Milly. Grace no trouble, she a good girl. And again, thank you. Tell the girls I say hi and we’ll see them soon.

(GRACE ​and​ DILSEY ​enter the street. They are outside the bank, where the auction is being held. They make their way to two seats.

DILSEY ​begins to tear up seeing SAMUEL in the far left. There are 2 or 3 slaves nearby him, one bald and one young and​ SAMUEL ​in the middle, tied to a rope, partially draped.

GRACE pulls out a fan for decency. An UNNAMED WHITE VOICE​ clears it’s throat.​ ) GRACE (​hushed​) Be still, Mrs. Pope. It’ll be okay.

DILSEY

You just woke up, Grace. How do you know that?

GRACE You need to march up to Mr. Springer and demand Samuel flat-out. Do you have the money?

DILSEY Yes. I wrapped it around and strapped to my thigh.

GRACE Excuse me, we’re here to purchase one Negro, by the name of Samuel Pope, owned by Patricia and Elliot Butler?

DILSEY He was brought down here today with a note, with instructions about his purchase, sir.

UNNAMED WHITE VOICE Very well. That will be $775 in cash. Final offer or he’s up for sale and bidding. He could probably break $900 by the looks of it, you say, girls?

DILSEY That is fine. Give me and my cousin a second. (turns to Grace)​ I need you to climb under my leg and get the money really quickly, follow me.

GRACE (​lifts dress, dropped to knees​)

DILSEY And then he’s going to count it and we’re going to leave with Samuel.

GRACE Dilsey, are you saying this for you or for me?

Lemme get the money from your undercarriage.

SAMUEL (across the room) Dilsey?

DILSEY (​excited​) Sam. Hold on! Hurry, Grace.

GRACE (l​eaning up)​ Here, Mrs. Pope. Pay the man and sign for the papers, quickly. I’mma fetch the carriage to load up for da Butlers if Auntie Milly not back. I gotsa get out of here.

GRACE ​exits.​ UNNAMED WHITE VOICE Sign here, Mrs. Pope.

DILSEY (​signs quickly and turns around)​ God...

SAMUEL (​to himself​) I can’t believe it.

DILSEY Father, I come to you, giving thanks for this moment.

SAMUEL

Dilsey.

DILSEY Please make him happy to see me.

UNNAMED WHITE VOICE Samuel, number 31, is yours, Ms. Pope.

Happy travels down back to Georgia.

(SAMUEL​ comes in from back behind the stage and is now across from Dilsey. He has pants but no shirt, and the rope around his hands lay between them. He falls a bit forward and then stares at her like he’s seen a ghost.

DILSEY ​is fighting tears.​) DILSEY I-I came here to get you.

SAMUEL Shit, I’m glad to see you here.

DILSEY (​walking forward​) Sam...I...

SAMUEL (​breathless, closing distance)​ I missed you.

ACT ​TWO​ | SCENE ​ONE (​4 months since the auction,​ DILSEY ​is ​HOME IN GEORGIA​ working on dresses for the ​HART SISTERS. ​The ​HART f​amily is one of her biggest clients. ​SAMUEL ​busts in the house she shares with her business partner M ​ ILLY ​and other free black women, late. He was supposed to be off work around 5 and come straight there but it is closer to 9 o’clock. ​SAMUEL ​has a 10:30 curfew to be on the H ​ ARTLAND PLANTATION ​, orders from ​OL HART. SAMUEL​ is helping some Hartland slaves fix up their yard. ​DILSEY​ is annoyed. He missed dinner.)​ DILSEY Sam? You got any idea what time it is?

SAMUEL I’se sorry, Dilsey. Ol Hart has us working like dogs. We hadda fix a couple windows today.

DILSEY Did he pay ya? It’s gonna be the end of the week now, anyday, suh.

SAMUEL (​slowly​) Nah... since I started in the middle of da week...and all dat paperwork the otha day...

DILSEY (​sighs)​ Alright.

SAMUEL But he wants ya to fix up a couple of his suit jackets and pants and he told me ta pass it on. So

I’m passing it. He lost a lil weight after spring. I told him you be perfect because you know ‘bout dat. Figurin’how you fixed up all youse dresses from when youse was big. (​Pained silence. D ​ ILSEY ​doesn’t even move, it hurts. S ​ AMUEL ​doesn’t notice.)​ SAMUEL I was watchin' ya from da store window dis morning.

DILSEY (​sniffs)​ Mmm. And how long it’s been wit you watching me sew, suh?

SAMUEL Well Dilsey, these young lil boys from the bar were talkin’. But shoot, it musta been about 5 years now. My brother, he just turned bout 16, and he 22 now. Hell, you had everybody in Charleston talking dat day. Looking dat pretty, I remember.

DISLEY ---Hush now, you ain't got to worry yerself thinkin that far back about all dat. An' South Carolina ain't none o' my business nohow.

SAMUEL (​sarcastic​) Shoot, since when?

DISLEY Since we free and living here now, Sam. In Georgia.

SAMUEL (​sour)​ Speak for yoself. I ain’t free. I’se just married to somebody free.

DISLEY (​agitated​)

Who married? We ain’t jump ova no broom in Georgia yet.

(SAM​ frowns, and steps away from ​DILSEY ​to grab something from his bag​ ​. She tries not to flinch when he turns around but does so anyway​.)

SAMUEL Girl, calm down. Dere ya go. It’s yo wedding bracelets. Remember? I found it before we got in the wagon.

DILSEY (​sad​) Oh Sam. You can’t be serious.

SAMUEL I can wait as long as you needs, Ms. Pope. But I’se a man of action. I know what I want.

DILSEY You know...It’s just... Everything havta change if we’se married. I don't want no other woman to be wit you, since we's married. It’s gotta be forever.

I’ve done known you bout dat long.

SAMUEL Well of course it is silly. ​ Y ​ ou gonna be my wife, da mother o' my chillun. What ya mean girl?

DILSEY (​emphatically)​ Sam, if we gits together, dat gonna be da end of you eva bein' wit somebody else. Gina, Ol Hart’s laundry lady, said she been wit ya. Or she planning to. Already. The otha gals, they talk. And I can’t never forget back in Charleston​, Ms. Honey. U ​ gh, I jus' can’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout when you an’ her… (​A sigh. Beat.)

SAMUEL

Alright but think ‘bout right now. You free. Honey ain’t. She ain’t mean nothing to me, not more than you, Dilsey.

DILSEY So you only picked me because I’m free? What dat make you, a saint? I gots ta bend my knees every night so's I don't think 'bout you and dat girl in bed together when we was supposed to be together. I see ya two when I close my eyes at night sometimes, Sam. How dat make ya feel?

SAMUEL You gots ta stop, Dilsey. Pray harder. Can’t go around thinking bout dat. I’se sorry, Dilsey. What else you want me to say? But you'se da woman I loves. I done left South Carolina for ya, girl. (​Silence.​ SAMUEL​ tries again.)

SAMUEL And listen, when..when you start selling dese soaps downtown and I start earnin’, we can get enough money to stop working for Ol Hart and we don’t have to listen to nobody, girl. None of the otha gals, not ol’ Hart, not no Preacher, not nobody. Just you and me, alright?

(D ​ ILSEY​ bites her lip, crosses her arms and still doesn’t respond, tears maybe flowing. S ​ AMUEL tries to embrace her, but she doesn’t move. It ends with a defeated kiss on the forehead. D ​ ILSEY goes back to her sewing. S ​ AMUEL​ goes to the kitchen and sees the food saved for him.)

SAMUEL Ain't ya gonna eat nuthin'?

DILSEY Too late. I already ate. I jus' needs to be sewing for a while. ​(fake laugh)​ You ain't gotta fuss ova me no mo' tonight, ya hear?

SAMUEL I hear ya, Dilsey.

DILSEY I’mma see you later, Sam. You gotta get on back to Hart’s house. Before we’s get in trouble.

(They kiss goodbye. S ​ AMUEL​ exits. D ​ ILSEY breathes, as if for the first time)

ANOTHER ROUND by melanie monji

“You me and Hennessy, look what you did to me.

I wonder what it would feel like to not hurt

I said my head keep on spinnin.

anymore.

I'm out of my mind.

but not hurting would mean

Me Hennessy and you, me Hennessy and you.

Me Hennessy and you, me Hennessy and you.”

☼ I remember the first time my lips

not feeling the fire that you cause to run through my veins. this soul tie is not in vain.

ever touched a liquor bottle. being old enough to drink was well

I snuck into a bar with my fake ID once

beyond my reach,

& asked a woman her favorite drink

so I did what was necessary

and her reply was

to obtain the escape that I needed.

“I like my drinks like I like my men: Brown. they feel good when digested, cold fire in ya chest,

my prepubescent brain did not

and then they ain’t around.”

know the difference between getting help and using you as a crutch to help myself.

and then there’s me. brown girl in a world that refers to coping

I spent so many nights missing you.

as being similar to that of the anatomy of a man,

so many nights crouched down

and though I did not quite understand,

having one sided conversations with my bathroom

I drank anyway.

floor.

tonight by jp harp

tonight’s walk felt, wrong. my ability to feel still surprises me the bubbling guilt is annoying am I settling? or is this the part where the evolve forms & the fox that halts my walk, warns that with the fleeting warmth, you can’t run. you can’t even walk. you stand, still. & when the foxes come and surround this stance, I present the art of patience.

HE CALLED ME HIS HONEYCRISP APPLE AND I LOWKEY KINDA LIKED IT (m/t/a)

mid may, still morning still somewhere still-. smoke atop the balcony followed after a symphony of bubbles. followed by laughter and maybe a cough. the green grass proclaims that it is summer. it is the first time it has been warm every time the wind hit in many, many months. the whole earth could somehow feel that. faith digging under the waterlogged dirt 80 degrees with a chance of humidity and rain was the kind of weather that has made her want to heal somebody before herself too many times. she remembered that she watched a storm take this place more than once. it was northern virginia somewhere in the summertime, there was bound to be protest when the sun decided to set. god kept sending thunder at 6 pm. she remembered smoke filling the balcony there too, like it always did these days somehow. she remembered watching her roommate sniffle at a mother deer and a baby deer lose each other in the storm and a tear fell down her cheek onto a wet balcony. the same balcony that did not remember anything of that the next morning. the same balcony that was different now found that there was new purpose now that the sun had come out to dry shhh. & still. the birds have kept chirping. the woodpecker says good morning it is your 11:28 am wake up call.

and all the world is green again, placed at your fingertips. you are with someone you will love always the kind of boy that could fill pages of a journal. the kind of boy that still can. but for once, no one is yearning. there is irrevocable peace. god, that had to be the point.