SISTORIES Issue II: Correspondence

THE

CORRESPONDENCE ISSUE

Made possible by

edited by Ashley Danielle @spiritedrebellion

+ Fola Onifade @o.esther.o

CORRESPONDENCE

feb 2021 issue ii Volume i

what's inside this issue

07

48-50

15-16

11-12

Almah LaVon Rice

Dakotah Carter

Delisha White

Janaka Bowman Lewis

Nonfiction

Cover & Coloring Pages

Nonfiction

Poetry @janakab @jnblue Janaka 'JBL' Lewis

@dopeassdelisha

@dakotahaiyanna

@agentsubrosa @almahcreative

37-38

05

28-31

13

Juju Bae

mariah webber

Olivia Chisholm

Patrice Wilson

Lyrical Nonfiction

Interview

Poetry

Dramatic Nonfiction

@to.liveincolor

@slaiborneinc

@itsjujubae

@patricehere

41 Vashti Adedokun Short Story

10 Myka Johnson Poetry

04, 25-26, 40 Camille Hughes

32-33, 39

46

27, 34

Samiah Fulcher

Sonia McCallum

Tiya Caniel

Poetry

Short Story

Poetry

@samiahfulcher @samiahsoul @samiahstudio @safulcher

@pleasesaythekay @skm76

@tiyacaniel @thesacredselflovesociety

Photography @herhues_

23-24 The Sanctuary in the City Letter @thesanctuaryinthecityclt

36 Fola Onifade Poetry

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR THE CORRESPONDENCE ISSUE

*trigger warning* this letter and issue make references to gendered violence committed against Black people.

With each issue, we set out to provide

We recognize that, like myself, many

the space for deep listening. In

of us have roots and loved ones

considering the immense collective

beyond the borders of Charlotte.

grief we’re experiencing and our

There is space to honor that

inability to gather and heal by sharing

connection here.

space with one another, we decided When the debut issue of SISTORIES launched almost exactly one year ago I had no idea that we were about to be impacted by an unprecedented confluence of crises. Looking back, I can see how, like so many other times, I should have listened to my mother.

After standing outside to direct our guests to our first workshop, and hanging around for a bit to chat, she left to make sure we had the essentials we’d need in the case of any impending shutdowns or shortages.

She’d been paying attention to the way Covid-19 was spreading across the globe long before the masses of us began receiving mixed messages from sensationalist mainstream media and the inept government. Most of my family thought she was being dramatic, but as cities began closing, and infection rates and subsequent deaths continued to climb, I couldn’t help wondering how different things might have been if only we’d listened to what the people who were paying attention had to say. If, for a moment at least, we suspended our disbelief or unwavering surety, and instead committed ourselves to hearing what folks in our communities were trying to tell us about what they knew and how they knew it.

Then, the latest installments of state violence against Black people and the consequent uprisings began.

Oluwaytoyin Salau was murdered.

Followed by a global reminder that the police are a plague everywhere, and a southern ecological crisis that made the need for solutions robust enough to hold all of us that much more perceivably urgent.

that we would emphasize the

This issue contains letters and works

epistolary tradition and art of letter-

inspired by The Color Purple in the

writing as an accessible, intimate, and

forms of poetry, short fiction,

necessary form of archival and

nonfiction, visual art, & photography.

connection.

You will also find interactive workbook elements, both original and

Each edition is also rooted in the

pulled from the Criminalizing Survival

themes of another literary work by a

Curriculum by Survived and Punished

southern Black femme. For this

(learn more and donate at

edition, we chose Alice Walker’s, The

survivedandpunished.org), designed to

Color Purple. I read it for the first

make clear the connection between

time in high school during a time

the calls for defunding to abolish that

when I was experiencing another

grew louder last summer, and the

period of health-related isolation. An

daily violence Black femmes face

aunt had grown ill and needed caring

which has only increased during this

for. I returned to Virginia, and

time of crises. As stated in the

attempted, along with my cousin to

Criminalizing Survival curriculum,

provide what was needed. I’m not sure

“according to the ACLU, nearly 60

how much help we were in actuality,

percent of people in women’s prisons

but it was during that time that I

nationwide, and as many as 94 percent

found Celie’s letters to her sister and

of some women’s prison populations,

to God.

have a history of physical or sexual abuse before being incarcerated (3).

When I thought of Celie’s story of

And though there is limited data on

physical and sexual assault, her

trans and non-binary people in men’s

isolation, and the eventual

jails, “we know that these populations

transformation that she and the other

are also disproportionately survivors

characters undergo, when I thought of

of domestic and sexual violence” (3).

that slowed period of time aided by

By now, we are all also aware that we

medical racism which allowed me to

have been in one of the most

wander into my cousin’s closet and

precarious positions health wise and

discover the old school book, it

economically as a result of the

became clear that this was the text for

pandemic.

the moment we're living through.

Beyond responses to this collective We invited our community of readers

moment, you will also find

and writers to send letters to family

explorations and examples of how we

and friends, while also inviting

can transform the conditions and

submissions for publication. Most of

impact of these oppressions on our

the pieces in this collection were

individual and collective spirits. The

conjured by a Black femme that is

storysharers here range from first-

from/lives in Charlotte, North

time writers, organizers and life-long

Carolina or the surrounding area. We

lovers of words, to PhD students and

also decided to open submissions to

esteemed professors. May their

all those south of the mason dixon to

reflections be a balm, and their words

honor our migratory geographies and

transform us all.

southern solidarity.

-Ashley Danielle, Editor-In-Chief

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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5 TENETS OF BLACK FEMINIST THEORY from the criminalizing survival curriculum by survived & punished

1. Intersectionality: evaluate the interlocking oppressions that Black women face in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the kind of violence Black women in the US are experiencing.

Intersectionality is “relational, structural, political, and ideological, and thus explains male violence as complex and multi-dimensional.” The analysis looks at the ways that “non-normative images and disadvantaged social status” create particular vulnerabilities.

Simultaneity of oppression – “Black women’s bodies are simultaneously marked by racial, gender, sexual, color, historical, class, and other stigmas; these stigmatized identities and the subsequent oppressions are not hierarchical or additive; they are intersectional.”

2. Black women’s experiences at the center of the analysis (standpoint epistemology) Expertise lies with those who have been subordinated and victimized (and so those who claim authority – scholars, policymakers, lawyers, social workers – must yield expertise to those most impacted)

3. Everyday Knowledge: Black women experiencing the violence are the authorities and experts on their own experiences Recognize and value the collective wisdom of the Black women at center of analysis rather than relying on scholars who “lack access to authentic understandings of events, relationships, behaviors, values, or historical antecedents to current phenomena.”

4. Power of images of Black women Images of Black women are dialectical and almost always in conflict with notions of hegemonic femininity that imagines women to be passive, nurturing, and relationship oriented, and thus ‘innocent victims’ Eg: “Black women can be strong (and therefore not at risk of violence), castrating (and therefore incapable of heteronormative intimacy), hypersexual (therefore ill-suited for long-term relationships or parenting), or criminal (and therefore unworthy of protection or support).” Black feminist theory recognizes how Black women can be all of these at once – 5. Social Justice Praxis Research on Black women be linked to efforts to change social conditions that cause subordination of Black women and their communities Oriented toward empowerment, coalition building, social justice Challenge hierarchies of power, transform academic institutions, advance new kinds of organizational leadership, reinvigorate grassroots mobilization

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part I

dear sister...

“I say, Write. she say, Nothing but death can keep me from it."

-ALICE WALKER, THE COLOR PURPLE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMILLE HUGHES

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core response as correspondence mariah webber

hey sis, suh, sus, kin, mother, muva:

but sis, suh, sus, kin, mother, muva:

can i talk to you about the importance of

this white supremacist lie is not our core response. it

storytelling? the correspondence. yes. that’s what

is not ours and thus, we gotta give it back. it goes

i’m sharing with you. the core response, yes. there in

without saying, and i know you already know, but we

the chest. that deep power of chatter, low kitchen

fare far better when we coat our responses in the balm

gossip, transferred cooking recipes, and

of our own collective healing. we fare better when we

handwritten “i love you’s.”

learn to respond from the core. what might it mean for us to relate to one another in ways that embody the

black people are not foreign to communication. in

softness of collective black being? what might it mean

glances, small touch, in stars, and in brain waves we

to truly speak to one another from that deep

have always communicated across borders, time,

interiority, the black softness in our chest? it is

space, and over sound. when whiteness wrapped

something we negroes are born with knowing, but are

itself around our tongues it created a disconnect in

charged to re-cultivate once exposed to social

our core response. there was (& can continue to be)

programming. the core of who we are and how we want

a temporary loss of contact between our core (our

to be related to is outside of the parameters of white

interior needs) and our response (our praxis).

supremacist thought. whiteness simply does not have the range, the breadth, or the depth that we need. this

whiteness around our speech removes us from the core responsiveness and replaces that deep knowing with sharp tongues and cutting eyes critical of those wayward from white purity

is why we need a deep, dark black core for our responding. this is not a tone policing piece, if you are a devout purist i cannot absolve you from the sharp tongue of resistance. talk shit, get hit. what i am advocating for is a freedom technology of

because of this, corresponding with your black

relating wherein we recognize the black soft core of

mother might have meant understanding that

one another when engaging in response with our

response is obedience. response is diverted eyes.

chosen family and communities. this freedom

response is recoiling. it might have meant when

technology, the act of speaking from the core, is

responding to your kin, response is immediate.

nothing new. we must simply be committed to the

response cuts. response clears a room. this is the

return. core respondence as correspondence is

residual violence of the whiteness that wrapped

engaged when your grandmother prays over you, it was

itself tightly, but not securely, around the tongue.

there when your mother called you down from the

this is what scholar sister saidiya hartman has called

womb to this place, and it is here waiting for you to

the “afterlife of slavery,” the intimate warping of

return. we must take up the charge of speaking and

time and space in which white violence does not

approaching one another with respect to our cores and

dissolve, but instead morphs. whiteness around our

trauma that requires a respondent softness.

speech removes us from the core responsiveness and replaces that deep knowing with sharp tongues

this appeal to interiority brings forth deep and

and cutting eyes critical of those wayward from

necessary connection as well as acknowledgment of

white purity: fast girls, gender benders, welfare

the softness of our resilient yet fragile black being.

queens, fat femmes, onlyfans models, poly lovers,

speak, tell stories, lightly gossip, send letters, type

dark skin beauties, single mothers.

tweets, and call your sisters, mothers, siblings, family, loved ones, and strangers in directly from your core to theirs. loose the tongue ties of white supremacy and move towards a truly core aligned methodology correspondence. may the weight of our words fall softly on those deserving of retribution and grace. core respond.

THE VIOLENCE MATRIX

Intimate Households

Community

Social Sphere

Social Disenfranchisement

Physical Assault

Sexual Assault

Direct physical assaults by intimate partners or household members, victim retaliation

Sexual aggression by intimate partners or household members

Emotional abuse and manipulation by intimate partners or household members, forced use of drug and alcohol, isolation and economic abuse

Assaults by neighbors, lack of bystander intervention, availability of weapons

Sexual harassment, acquaintance rape, gang rape, trafficking into sex industry, stalking

Degrading comments, hostile neighborhood conditions, hostile or unresponsive school and work environments, residential segregation, lack of social capital, threat of violence

Stranger assault, state violence (e.g. police), gun control policies

Stranger rape, coerced sterilization, unwanted exposure to pornography

Negative media images, denial of significance of victimization, degrading encounters with public agencies, victim blaming, lack of affordable housing, lack of employment and health care, mistrust of public agencies, poverty

"Surrounding the Violence Matrix is the tangled web of structural disadvantages, institutionalized racism, gender domination, class exploitation, heteropatriarchy and other forms of oppression that locks the systematic abuse of Black women in place. Responses need to be developed that take into account all of the forms of abuse and all of the spheres within which injustice occurs."

From: Richie, Beth E. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation. New York: New York University Press, 2012.

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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O TASTE AND SEE almah Lavon rice

"I actually aspire to be Zoralush, with Gwendolyn grammars. I write for that campfire of incarcerated Black women, who huddled close to my words to get warm. They chose me first, and I choose them right back over and over again ⸺ my ideal readers."

We was girls together, but we were lil Sula

When I did write letters to my childhood

and Nel of Kentucky, not Ohio. As children

friend, I did so with all my velvet. I lived in

we made promises as children do:

New Mexico during some of the years she

lawlessly. Golden-hearted bandits we were,

was on the inside, and if prison walls were

but still we borrowed against a future that

going to be stingy with color and beauty,

wasn’t only ours to shape. One vow was

the letters I sent to my friend were not.

that we would never marry. The plan was to

Unseal this envelope and meet a desert

get grown, and get an apartment together

town with one store, one post office, 100

to go with the station wagon we would fill

people and countless wilder residents:

with our stuffed animals. We did grow up, but we also grew apart, until prison, inexplicably, pulled us together again. I was on the outside, she was on the inside, and our letters slipped through the bars.

Her letters: all those years of institutional blue paper, blue envelopes. A steady stream of them, some of them cajoling me to write more often. On my end, it was true that I let perfectionism and self-consciousness clot my pen, so there were long silences between my missives. Years after she was released from prison I read intimacy is an unarmed encounter with another so now I know that I wanted to armor myself with my friend. Fortress myself against my friend, whose grandmother I also called Granny. Bulwark myself against my friend, whose childhood home I can still smell like a confection, when I can’t even remember the scent of my own girlhood house across the street. Dear friend, please accept this late, much-too-late postcard: I knew self-

deer, elk, coyote, bears, wild turkeys, bobcats, roadrunners, snakes, owls, bats, and ancestors who made the lights in my casita flicker. Unwrap this care package and out tumbles the smell of sap warming in the sun, the sound of magpies bogarting the bird feeder, the sight of mountains that distance makes blue, the taste of silver when snow is on its way.

My friend began reading my letters out loud to fellow inmates. They just gather around to listen to your descriptions, she wrote, like it’s storytime. A white male editor once rejected a story I had written, suggesting my writing was marked with the much-maligned “purple prose.” He may have had a point, as angularity or spareness have never been among my virtues. Or perhaps my violet wasn’t never for him and his readers anyway⸺I actually aspire to be Zora-lush, with

loathing stole from me but I never knew it

Gwendolyn grammars. I write for that

took from you, too. We was girls together,

campfire of incarcerated Black women,

so we were bandits together; together we

who huddled close to my words to get

were going to abscond from the rigors of

warm. They chose me first, and I choose

adulthood, run away into the night⸺but

them right back over and over again--my

P.S. I ended up doing what adults do, after

ideal readers.

all: withhold. Sis, I should have spared you no extravagance.

Once my friend was released from prison, she took a road trip. She traveled to Texas, and then onto New Mexico. “It was just like you said,” she told me over the phone.

Is there a greater honor, to be able to write a tasteable world and put it in the palm of another Black woman?

CARCERAL FEMINISMS VS. TRANSFORMATIVE JUSTICE Carceral Feminisms Uses gender-exclusive, generic, one-size-fits-all framework

Transformative Justice Uses Black feminist framework -- intersectional [race, gender, class, sexuality, citizenship shape violence, politics, and representation], centers knowledge of those most impacted, recognizes fluidity and impact of images of Black women, committed to change social conditions that subordinate and marginalize Black women and their communities

Narrowly focuses on individual, isolated incidents of interpersonal physical and sexual abuse by heterosexual partners or acquaintances

Uses Violence Matrix that recognizes multiple forms of violence (physical, sexual, hostile social environment [emotional manipulation]) and contexts of violence (intimate households, community, state) surrounded by structural disadvantages, institutionalized racism, gender domination, class exploitation, heteropatriarchy and other forms of oppression within prison nation

Constructs narrow image of “innocence” that excludes Black women who are young, poor, queer, or living in vulnerable circumstances

Affirms and publicly supports Black women who are young, poor, queer, or living in vulnerable circumstances

Relies on and expands policing, law enforcement, and criminal legal system

Develops community responses for support, intervention, healing, and accountability that do not rely on the state

Ignores and excludes state violence to gain legitimacy within agenda of prison nation

Challenges state violence in connection with household and community violence

Relies on professionalized mainstream social services focused on individuals

Pushes for community-specific culturally competent services that address structural sources of violence, and are connected to grassroots mobilization

Expansion of political and civil rights, with focus on institutional reform

Social change work to dismantle structural, systemic roots of violence that are embedded in institutions

Call for new laws and increased policing, arrest, and criminalization

Committed to prison abolition and dismantling of prison nation

Approach to violence is individualized, decontextualized, and local

Recognizes local in global struggles addressing the role of global capitalism in creating systemic disadvantage and marginalization, and violence

Criminalizing Survival: A Resource of Curricula and Activities bySurvived and Punished, p. 141

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SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

WRITE

purple prose: writing that is considered too wordy, formal, or needlessly poetic safety: the ability to bring, be, and move through the world as your full self. – API Chaya justice: “a slow process of naming and transforming violence into growth and repair; it is also frustrating and elusive – and rarely ends in good feelings” (Kai Cheng Thom)

Using "purple prose," describe a world a world without policing and prisons, or a world where these institutions are considered archaic. Make sure your utopia reflects some key needs, like safety, agency, dignity, and belonging.

punishment: “a gratifying process of enacting revenge that also perpetuates cycles of violence” (Kai Cheng Thom)

belonging: a feeling of deep relatedness and acceptance; a feeling of ‘I would rather be here than anywhere else. Belonging is the opposite of loneliness. It’s a feeling of home, of ‘I can exhale here and be fully myself with no judgement.’

Belonging is about shared values and responsibility, and the desire to participate in making your community better. It’s about taking pride, showing up, and offering your unique gifts to others. You can’t belong if you only take. community: a group of three or more people with whom you share similar values and interests and where you experience a sense of belonging.

What are the "deep knowings" of your core? Begin a letter to or from that center affirming what you know to be true.

healing: “the process of restoration for those who have been hurt, and although justice can aid this process, my own experience is that healing is an individual journey that is almost entirely separate from those who have caused harm. No apology, or amount of money or punishment, can give me back the person I was, the body and spirit I possessed, before I was violated. Only I can do that.” (Kai Cheng Thom)

Definitions adapted from + inspired by Project Nia's "Against Punishment" Curriculum, pg 89

sistories litmag feb • 2021

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THE DAY WE SURVIVED An Anthology of poems by a Black Trans Femme myka Johnson

1.

Dear Black Trans Gurl, Don’t ever aspire to be “WOMAN” enough.

You Just Are...

Dear Black Trans Gurl

And so much MORE✨✨✨✨ Love, Dysphoric Black Trans Femme

You Can Cry,

2.

You will have plenty to Cry about Release Love, Vulnerable Black Trans Femme

3.

Dear Black Trans Gurl, Don't let Cis Folk tell u how much they admire ur strength and resilience Unless they are putting their bodies on the line to liberate you We never asked to be THIS strong And they're part of the problem Love, Unbreakable Black Trans Femme

Dear Black Trans Gurl, So about these White Trans Folks...

4.

Watch em hunny, They ain’t no good either Love, Unapologetic Black Trans Femme

5.

Dear Black Trans Gurl Cis Dick wont satisfy you...

As long as they want nothing more from you than kept secrets, a wet pussy, a body to bruise and a life to take It won’t work Xis Love Dissatisfied Black Trans Femme

Dear Black Trans Gurl, We Created ALL this shit, We Created that shit too, Love, Manifesting Black Trans Femme

6.

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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SISTER POEM #1,

inspired by The Color Purple IN HAIKU janaka bowman lewis I. Celie to Nettie “But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive” All you got to do Is stay Black and not die soon.

Just try hard to live.

II. Sofia and Celie “I say, You feels sorry for me, don’t you?

SISTER POEM #2 janaka bowman lewis

She think a minute. Yes ma’am, she say slow, I do.

I think I know how come, but I ast her anyhow.”

Hey Celie You call her Sister But she more like your daughter No one sees you close

Dear Celie You been on my mind, too.

Wonder how you let him just Lay on you and

III. Under foot

“Do his business,” as you say.

Don’t you got some business too?

She sees that he hates Like under her daddy’s foot “This soon be over.”

IV. "But he my husband” Talk to Old Maker Tell him what he did this time “Heaven last all ways.”

Alice Walker, The Color Purple, p. 26 p. 46 p. 46 Walker, p. 47

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

GOOD LOOK janaka bowman lewis

Shug on Celie: “She look me over from head to foot . . . You sure is ugly, she say, like she ain’t believed it.”

Celie on Shug: “[She]look like she ain’t long for this world but dressed well for the next” Hey Celie Dear Celie Why you let her call you ugly?

When she sho is ugly herself?

And what do you see so pretty in her At the same damn time?

Do you see the dressed up showgirl Mr._____ sees in her Talking over and treating you like whatever is under the bottom of his shoe Or do you actually see her truly for your own self “Yellow powder caked up . . . Red rouge” in the yard you work like a man?

Do you see beyond her evil when no one else will take her in?

The “bag of bones” she call herself, Sucking her “teef” as you wash her?

She tells you “take a good look” and you do.

But you wash her body and it feels like prayer.

What, dear Celie, do you pray for?

New eyes for him, for her, for you?

That the scene will change?

Or just for life, returning?

Postscript “Dear God, Ain’t nothing wrong with Shug Avery. She just sick. Sicker than anybody I ever seen. She sicker than my mama was when she die. But she more evil than my mama and that keep her alive.”

Walker, p. 50. same Walker, p. 51.

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SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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MELANIN REVELATION patrice wilson As the sun caresses your melanin skin and pays tribute to your beauty, I smile.

Like a work of art carefully crafted to depict the multifaceted nature of the human condition; as a shadow is cast on the other side of your face.

Does the darkness represent the trials and tribulations while the light represents triumph and transcendence or is it vice versa?

Always been told light was good and dark bad but from my experience, through the darkest periods comes transcendence. You remind me of this.

And too, some people are so focused on getting to the “light” they don’t learn from the darkness and so they are inundated with “light” and still don’t notice it.

As the sun caresses your melanin skin and pays tribute to your beauty, I smile.

Like a work of art, you provoke me to look deeper than the surface and rethink the things I’ve never questioned.

In your face I find myself

HAIKU FOR YOU patrice wilson Hold me in your arms Embrace me with your full lips Heal me with your words Deserving of love

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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WRITE Self-care is more than a trendy buzzword, it’s critical to our survival. How are your self-care practices contributing to your personal liberation?

“We all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, and our own self is what we have at hand.”

-The Color Purple, pg 269

What questions are you afraid to ask yourself?

What would you find if you took a closer look at yourself, your family, your community?

Society?

"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident."

-The Color Purple, pg 281

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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GROW FROM YOUR ROOTS delisha white

The Color Purple is a call to action

It’s the way we can smell like

She states two things that

for all women to be themselves

coconut oil and shea butter or

validated my current spiritual

unapologetically by finding their

Roja Haute Luxe that we bought

journey, which takes the form of

divinity, embracing it and taking it

ourselves on a Tuesday because

daily meditation in front of a

with them along their unique path

we can, since Black women are

maple tree that I named

in this life. The book taught me a

the fastest growing group of

“OAKEY”in childhood, honest

very important lesson: Do not

entrepreneurs in America. It’s us

conversations with God with my

make yourself smaller for the

hugging ourselves because we

face reaching towards the Sun,

attention of men or to survive in a

want to feel true love (self-love),

and a feeling that my higher self

Western capitalist society. Grow as

it’s us doing our affirmations,

exists within the elements around

a high as a tree in the Amazon

calling God a Black woman and

me. Alice explains what God is to

Rainforest and nurture this world

never wavering on demanding the

her and that is what God is to me

with the gifts that dwell within

respect we deserve. We are hated

⸺an all-consuming life force

your spirit.

and minimized for knowing our

that we can see, touch, experience

power. The character in The Color

and weep in recognition of its

Today, Black women are still the

Purple who most represents this

beauty.

most disrespected human beings

journey women go through is the

in America. It’s the way that we

beautiful, smart, and gifted Celie.

Alice states:

hold our crowns high, twist our curves, and braid our hair.

In the Preface of the novel, Alice

“ Having recognized myself

Walker confirmed an idea that I

as a worshiper of Nature by

struggled with prior to opening.

age eleven, because my spirit resolutely wandered

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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out the window to find trees

Due to sexual violence she was

Through Celie’s journey I learned

and wind during Sunday

silenced and made to fit into the

that none of us are inherently

sermons, I saw no reason

abusive framework men place

ugly, too dark, too light. We are

why once free, I should

women in.

the CEOs of our own journey’s,

bother with religious matters

and the story only stops when

at all.” “…to explore the

The novel begins with her first

our destinies are fulfilled . We

difficult path of someone

letter to God; however, it’s the

will rise above our

who starts out life already a spiritual captive, but who,

words of her abuser that start these gut-wrenching missives.

through her own courage and

circumstances and approach life with a child-like spirit.

Everything is possible because

the help of others, breaks

“You better not never tell

God gave you melanin, coils in

free into the realization that

nobody but God. It’d kill your

your hair and a mind so resilient

she, like Nature itself, is a

mammy” -Mr._

you will never stop the fight for

radiant expression of the

visibility.

heretofore perceived as quite

The abuser gives her permission

distant Divine.”

to speak with God in case rape is

“Me and Sofia work on a quilt.

just too much to bear. In this

Got it framed up on the porch.

This set my soul aflame and

moment, we bear witness to the

Shug Avery donated her yellow

as I moved through the

patriarchal, abusive culture we

dress for scrap, and I work in a

novel, I looked for more

live in today in which men “allow”

piece every chance I get. It is a

themes of Nature. Celie

women to express themselves, but

nice pattern called Sister’s

does just that with a painful

only within the narrow constraints

choice.” -Celie

coping mechanism to think

of their egos and shield them from

of herself as a tree while she

consequences. Celie’s letters to

is beaten daily by Mr.____,

God follow the very same cycles

a man that is consumed with

Black women and non-binary

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple.

the notion of controlling

femmes feel today until they

Harcourt, 2006.

women.

embrace self-love.

Celie states:

Through my own talks with God and knowledge of mental health I

“He says Celie got the

see that above all, even if Celie

belt. The children are

can’t see it at first, God is moving

outside the room

her feet towards liberation. So

peeking through the

many Black women experience

cracks, it's all I can do

domestic violence and remain

not to cry. I make

quiet to protect the man. When a

myself wood. I say to

woman’s spirit starts to sing and

myself, Celie, you a

God is bringing her away from this

tree. That’s how I

captivity, she blooms as expansive

know trees fear man.”

as dahlia. All I have to say is congratulations Celie, you did it

Celie was introduced to us

through the power of God. You

readers as a very domestic

own a thriving business now,

woman that had not found her

you’re sexually liberated, and your

voice.

name holds power.

.

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 17

CHARACTER ACTIVITY Part 1 Trace a character from The Color Purple by filling out the charts and drawing in the empty character frames. In what ways did they demonstrate transformation or radical change? What knowings have they discovered?

How is that represented through their Speech, Thoughts, the way they Effect others, their Actions and their Looks?

before TRANSFORMING

S T E A L After TRANSFORMING

S T E A L

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 18

CHARACTER ACTIVITY Part 2 Next, trace your own transformation. Have there been any radical changes within your life this past year? What knowings have been discovered? How is that demonstrated by your Speech, Thoughts, the way you Effect others, your Actions and your Looks?

before TRANSFORMING

S T E A L After TRANSFORMING

S T E A L

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 19

CHARACTER ACTIVITY Part 3 Now, develop your own fictional character. How does your character transform by the end of your story? What knowings have been discovered?

How is that demonstrated in their Speech, Thoughts, the way they Effect other characters, their Actions and their Looks?

before TRANSFORMING

S T E A L After TRANSFORMING

S T E A L

30 LETTER WRITING PROMPTS 1. Write to a child in your life 2. Write to an elder in your life 3. Write a letter to a neighbor 4. Write a letter to your namesake 5. Start a letter with “Today I saw…”

6. Start a letter with “Have you seen…”

7. Start a letter with “Remember when…”

8. Start a letter with “Let me tell you…”

9. Write a thank you letter to your body 10. Write a love letter to your former self 11. Write a love letter to your future self 12. Write a letter to a parent/parental figure 13. Write a thank you letter to a teacher/mentor 14. Write a letter to an ancestor requesting guidance 15. Write a love letter to the sister you never had 16. Write a letter to someone who has inspired you 17. Write a letter requesting or sharing a family recipe 18. Write a letter of gratitude to someone/something 19. Write a letter to someone with whom you cohabitate 20. Imagining they can read, write a letter to an animal/pet 21. Print a picture and send it with a letter about that memory 22. Write a letter that allows you to get something off your chest 23. Write a letter sharing one thing you’ve learned during quarantine 24. Write a love letter to a friend sharing 5 things you love about them 25. Write a letter to someone who you haven’t been able to visit in awhile 26. Write an open letter to your city/town/community. What do you see that needs to be addressed?

27. Write a letter to an ancestor thanking them for what they’ve given you (symbolically or materially) 28. Find a place to sit outside and write a letter to someone describing everything your senses perceive.

29. Think of a time when you’ve caused harm. Write an apology letter to the person/people who were affected.

30. Write a letter to the team at SISTORIES. Send it to us (SISTORIES PO Box 5330, Charlotte, NC 28299) or share online & tag us @sistoriesclt. We’d love to hear from you!

WRITE Use this page to draft a letter using one of the prompts on page twenty or to reflect on the correspondence issue

/ 22

part II "Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. dear Everything. Dear god."

-ALICE WALKER, THE COLOR PURPLE 283

Beloved Community,

Peace and greetings. It is our hope that this letter finds you well. Thank you for the support you have shown us thus far. Thank you in advance for the support you will give. We are writing to share our work and vision for the Black community with you. It is with wild, unconditional love and rebellious intent that we have labored to carve out a healing space for you, Beloved.

The Sanctuary In The City is a black-led, woman-led organization based in Charlotte, NC. We were founded with the awareness of the need for accessible, safe, and affirming healing spaces for Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color. Growing and healing from race-based trauma and stress through focus on the WHOLE self for all BIPOC, is the primary purpose of The Sanctuary In The City.

Through community programming, grant funding, and scholarships, The Sanctuary In The City offers equitable access to educational opportunities, access to various wellness modalities, fair pay to BIPOC wellness practitioners and educators, and community healing events.

Please know, Beloved, the solutions we seek do not exist. It is up to us to envision something more, something better and never seen before. We must be the architects of our own future as a people. And we can be as audacious as we please as we build our own spaces, virtually and physically. We are UNSTOPPABLE. We have so many resources as a community, and need space to curate ways to share, build, and reimagine the narratives around our wellness. We no longer need to depend on other people to solve anything for our community. Everything we need is within.

Our group has been meeting in different capacities for nearly three years to slowly build our vision, align our talents, and formulate a plan of action to bring regular, accessible wellness programming exclusively to BIPOC. Our vision is tied to the collective healing that can bring our community together to find new patterns to heal old traumas.

Healing will continue to occur in the community spaces we create, when we connect to our individual humanity, honor and celebrate the strength that we possess and cultivate authentic community offerings.

The Sanctuary In The City aspires to be a self-sustaining, accessible, and affordable organization to all Black Indigenous People of Color. The Sanctuary In The City also aspires to continue to provide funding and accessibility to wellness and education programming that uplifts BIPOC. In addition to programs offered by the founders, The Sanctuary in the City will provide grant funding to BIPOC wellness educators and entrepreneurs and service providers to offer products and services that further our cause of personal and community transformation. We will also continue offering scholarships to assist in making training opportunities, retreats, workshops, and other aligned programming accessible to our community.

We are so, so proud of the work we have been privileged to do so far in our community and statewide.

Perhaps two of the most important and fulfilling things we offer currently are weekly wellness programming and emergency relief stipends to BIPOC in need.

Every week we offer a robust schedule of wellness classes and enrichment sessions, including yoga, meditation, sound baths, story time for youth, an adult book club, breathwork classes, and more. In addition, we continue to partner with BIPOC wellness practitioners to host virtual healing workshops and retreats throughout the year.

When the pandemic became prevalent in the beginning months of 2020, we were able to provide emergency relief stipends to people in North Carolina and Georgia. Since then, we have maintained the capacity to offer financial relief to BIPOC in need all year. More recently, we have teamed up with a fellow Charlottean to offer support to victims of domestic violence who are pursuing escape and refuge from their abusers. Our love for you is paramount. When we hear of the impact of our work, we are moved to tears each time. This is a labor of love that was first thought of by our founding member Christy Lee, who shared her vision with Kelley Palmer. The two of them welcomed others into the fold, including Tiya Caniel, who still remains on the board with them. Together, we (three Black women) are changing the model of nonprofits and the ways they operate. We are transparent in our efforts, and of course lovedriven. Our goal is to help as many BIPOC heal as possible.

We believe that wellness is OUR birthright. We as BIPOC have struggled and worked hard to no avail for long enough. It is time for us to rise and lean into the ease we deserve. It is time for us to dive into healing practices and move forward to liberation.We thank you again for supporting us and for trusting us. Even more gratitude to you for simply existing. We are excited and honored to continue this work for you, Beloved.

With everlasting love, The Sanctuary In The City

www.thesanctuaryinthecity.org

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMILLE HUGHES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMILLE HUGHES

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

the bath [a poem] tiya caniel reconnect to your heart she said run yourself a... spiritual bath of hot water, rose petals cinnamon sticks, rose quartz pieces, coconut milk strawberries for forgiveness… i found myself in that water with pink & white candles surrounding me and I thrashed and screamed and cried the maxed-out me soaked away felt my heart beating, pumping love was being revived inside pieces of her melding back together jagged, fleshy bits became smoother coming together as one i found my seven-year-old self sitting in our closet we talked and i encouraged her to stand down “we are safe now. you don’t have to protect me anymore.” she retreated, smiling i placed both hands over my left breast i forgave myself and promised to love myself unconditionally the beating of my heart lulled me lovingly into a trance a meditative state long after the water became tepid i came back into physical awareness taking deep breaths i squeezed strawberries between my fingers turned them to mush i stepped out of the tub wrapped myself in a luxurious towel smiled at my reflection and knew I was still in love

/ 27

ON SISTERHOOD, SOFTNESS AND SACRED FLOWERING an interview with Olivia Chisholm

Being raised in the south,

Softness is radical.

Softness finds us in the depths of ourselves that we are afraid to go and affirms us that this place too shall be loved.

that imagery is also matched with a young Black girl taking field trips to a state house that waved a flag of oppression at its heights while historical Black colleges lived just minutes away.

What has your creative

Who you are and where are you from?

I am Olivia. Most folks call me Liv. I was born and raised in Columbia, SC. The images of my childhood picture me, an extremely shy soul, caught in a moment with headphones, a CD- player, jamming out to anything from Quiet Storm Essentials, Motown classics, and 70s soul to 90s R&B. Also pictured was an introvert who was loved by a big family with one grandmother having 12 children, and my other with 6. Home was where my parents welcomed many, and where I began to observe that the beauty of Blackness exists beyond singularity.

Today, I am a Black woman,

journey as a southern Black

born under the Cancer sun. I

woman looked like?

love hard⸺my heart is simple, but my love is

My creative journey has

complex. I am unapologetic

been largely internal. I have

about my sexuality,

had many love affairs with

constantly unlearning that

different mediums and

my desires are mine, and to

continue to be a lover of

not be influenced by

many art forms. For the

anything external. My body

longest, I did not see myself

is a gift, but my mind is a

as an artist⸺just someone

hell of a place. I am private.

with a creative spirit

I am deep. I am emotionally

needing healthy outlets to

flawed, yet my emotions run

serve as tools for coping; for

fluid into others⸺

healing.

nourishing them to their depths. I want to love

Living with anxiety,

people where they have

heartbreaks, and the evident

trouble loving themselves.

joy and pain of being Black

My healing journey stems

in America, I leaned into

from me doing that to

writing, music, floral design,

myself⸺actively. I still

and hyper-focused on things

love oldies, but Megan Thee

I could make beautiful in my

Stallion and Amy Winehouse

home as temporary escapes

bring me joy. Spontaneous,

from reality, while having

yet tenacious.

spent the last 7 years of my life deep in shadow work

Who am I? I am exactly who my ancestors intended me to be.

and rounds of therapy.

Having creative outlets and

I continue my equity and

You know I think the biggest

being deeply consumed

inclusion work through

thread that kept me sane

within the arts made space

contract consulting with

through maneuvering all the

for me to take my broken

strategic partnerships with

things mentioned in my

pieces and merge them into

people in spaces who are

story was the communion of

a collage; something Whole.

willing to move past a

Black sisterhood. Growing

narrative and make

up seeing 9/12 of my

With time, I am now

actionable change to better

grandmother’s children

accepting more of a

serve oppressed populations

being women⸺they were

maternal role which

in a sustainable manner. I

all a plethora of

demands for my creative

have unlearned the practice

personalities, and all so

journey to expand outwardly

of giving my emotional labor

magical. I dreamed of living

to others. I have always

to those that are not

an adulthood that embodied

wanted the people that I

actively listening to

different pieces of them.

neighbor, other Black people

oppressed communities and

The adult friends I have, my

and oppressed populations,

following through with

sister and cousins, that hold

to see ourselves not as

change. I make home within

me down and lift me up;

pieces but as Whole. We are

my community and self-

relationships that are

truly the magic in this

initiatives.

boundless contradictions,

world. Our magic brings forth culture. To be a southern Black woman maneuvering a creative realm from a consumer POV initially, I distinctly noticed how many cultural institutions did not make space for oppressed populations, routing me on the inclusion, diversity, and equity route.

2020 has changed many things, and while my work is now a blended battle of equity, consulting, and my artistry, I see my journey reveal a truth discovered by so many other culture workers, that you cannot make home within any system that is intentionally built to prevent us thriving.

the women that embrace me I began “GivingBlackWomenTheirFlo wers," a cultural ode to Black Women, not realizing I was blending two worlds of art and equity. Long story long, it has been a complex journey. I am exploring outwardly, while taking up space in ways that honor my artistry.

You participated in our community read of The Color Purple. Can you discuss the connection between the book and the offering of love that is #GivingBlackWomenTheir Flowers?

and mentor me in the Charlotte community⸺ mostly Black women. The literation of writing letters to my friends⸺a lost art that I am so happy to find between so many modern Black women. I have found so many beautiful metaphors of love letters exchanged between Black women, that it was very natural to me to make and deliver my closest friends bouquets shortly after Breonna Taylor’s killing was receiving national attention yet still receiving no justice.

Kinship between Black

While I am taking parts and

In addition, many of the

women is so damn special

creating something whole, I

materials used to structure

and unique. Our wins, our

muse on how a higher power

arrangements such as green

losses, our struggles⸺it’s

that lives intangible to my

foam are made with toxic

an understanding between

reality has manifested us all

chemicals.

many of us. It all felt very

in an image that is enough

organic, and from there my

as is. We are both gardens

My work will always be

friends began referring me

and harvesters, grasping to

rooted in making Black

to other women. We were

a spiritual realm that allows

homes softer in a

giving each other our

us to bloom while nurturing

sustainable manner. That

flowers like letters to Gods

others.

includes being very

from Gods.

intentional about the materials and practices I Your dried floral

bring into our homes. I am

Do you consider yourself

arrangements are gorgeous.

committed to working with

spiritual? If so, how does

I understand that the

non-toxic materials and

your artistic work with

decision to predominately

committed to using 90%

natural materials connect

work with dried botanicals

dried florals as they are

you to your spirituality?

was intentional. Can you

significantly more

tell me about that choice

sustainable than live

and its importance?

flowers. I also love how

I do. I see a direct parallel to working with natural

much more intentional I can

material to our bodies also

Thank you! Yes, I am big on

be when doing a custom

being made of organic

doing the work to make our

interior floral install with

material⸺both manifested

planet eco-friendly. I

dried florals. I design with

by a higher power.

research how that correlates

the conscious that my client

to the things that consume

will have this in their homes

me and was shocked to see

along with other sentiments

how much waste

for years. I love the weight

accumulates from the live

of eternity on the creative

botanicals industry.

process.

What is your favorite

Softness is radical. Softness

Life pre–covid, pictured me

botanical and why?

finds us in the depths of

setting a vibe with candles

ourselves that we are afraid

and foods and bringing good

For live botanicals, I love

to go and affirms us that

people together in an

Ranunculus . Each stem

this place too shall be loved.

intimate setting. I really

grows in its own direction,

It holds us accountable to

express creative energy

creating a little chaos but

our own truths ⸺ it

everywhere through nuance

lots of beauty. For dried, I

negates our lies. It is the

and sentiments.

love fillers such as mosses

consistent energy of

and pampas. They call me to

someone being in your

play with the concept of

corner, gassing you up, and

How can our community of

space.

watering you down. Softness

storysharers support your

is happy tears, and belly

alignment?

laughs. It is deep eye gazing, What is your favorite part

Sunday mornings love

Participate in

of your creative practice?

making. It is the everything

#GivingBlackWomenTheirFl

and the nothing. The thing

owers by sharing how you

The doing. The unplugging

that intangibly touches. It is

metaphorically give flowers

and taking care of myself in

a place Black people and

to yourselves and others.

a way that encourages

oppressed communities are

Purchase a bouquet or

creativity. It is a special

told we cannot have; we

schedule a consult for

process to get my mind and

cannot embody, so it is vital

interior floral installs in

my spirit to get to the

we create and flourish in the

your home, and keep me in

doing. I don’t take this

soft places that pre-exist

mind for dinner party décor!

moment for granted.

within ourselves. It is vital

I tablescape as well. Ok that

However, to see how many

we reside there, because

was my #shamelessplug.

Black women messaged me,

nowhere else will give us

called me, and have verbally

this peace.

told me that the giving aspect impacted them on a

How else do you express

positive front⸺that makes

your creative energy?

the doing all worth it.

I cook! I really enjoy I read on your website that

cooking, interior design,

part of your mission is to

writing letters to friends,

“create soft spaces” for

and lots of deep convo

oppressed communities.

expressing my views on life

Tell me what softness

and hearing the same from

means to you? And why is it

others. I am surrounded by

important for our

so many amazing creative

communities to have soft

souls⸺ it really is a hug to

places to land?

banter back and forth.

@to.liveincolor/ toliveincolor.com

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 32

Washing of the Hands Samiah Fulcher

I washed their hands one by one.

A dozen souls or more.

At my feet to be cleansed.

Fingers sprawled against linen Open Splayed In preparation for the taking The length of each digital bone stretched across the warmth of my palms.

Wet. A soothing cool.

We whispered prayers to each other.

In heartbeats And soft moans.

Inhaling my exhale as a thank you for being.

This moment ours.

Holy.

Under watchful waiting eyes.

May this confession render us sanctified.

What do you need to confess?

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

God of Women and Man Samiah Fulcher You are creation walking. Bearing fountains of youth on your chest like medallions of gold.

You laugh deeper, tread lighter, and carry more.

You speak softly in rooms that fall silent to hear the gentle tones that are your voice.

You are woman and mother. A sister and lover.

A divinely crafted and imperfect being.

A beautifully tender and human thing.

God damn the soul that doesn’t see you for your magic. I look at you and see the wonder of mystery incarnate.

Some would name it sin to bow to any other than our creator but I’ll sacrifice my life and an eternity later to fall to my knees at your feet in your worship with a promise to keep your taste safe upon my lips.

Closely watched and savored like the most precious of gifts.

My arms will give you rest as my fingertips make music of your skin. A sticky flowing song making a river of my chin.

I give you my tongue in love. Trap your moans in delicate spaces.

Our mouths create a home for the words we dare not say in other places.

Our wanting becomes cloaked in silence.

An infinite embrace at an end.

Bodies given back to the lives we lead behind dark and heavy doors.

Once more held by the less tender lovers we claim but care not for.

/ 33

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 34

when i got a taste of her love, something amazing happened to me... tiya caniel

when i got a taste of love when it brushed against my arm when love spread me open gently and breathed into my right ear i felt my spirit undulate and pulse blood rushed into every dried-up crevice of my heart pieces were hanging on by a thread i felt my soul gyrate and vibrate my soul radiated, y’all and it sang a song on key, then harmonized with the hum of the universe and wrote a sacred hymn the celestial beings bobbed their heads extraterrestrial bodies intertwined and rubbed one another to satisfaction the sky burst open in orgasmic celebration and everything was covered in blue i mean the earth was dripping wet from the explosion that burst from my heart a sweet, wet nectar dripped down and pooled itself into massive bodies of flowing, ever-moving water… then love visited me, its scent filled up the entire room its fragrance filled my nostrils and wove itself into the fabric of my spirit and love kissed me, y’all and overtook me love embraced me and held me tight pulled me super close so my ear rested against its heart my heartbeat fell instantly in sync with love’s internal metronome and my blood rushed to repair and moisturize those dry, cracked crevices love held my hands and gazed at them with wonder and overt admiration love turned my palms so they faced up and kissed the center of each one love’s tongue lightly tasted each of my fingertips love and i shared laughs and our individual laughs intertwined, melting into one frequency humming moans & lyrics & long exhales & Ommmmms with the Universe we became one and the same a single mechanism of breath...and fluid... and meditative movements we formed a river that flowed into a never-ending sea an ocean of bliss an abyss of peaceful blue-black, indigo...

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 35

WRITE How have you come to understand spirit?

Describe an experience that has shaped your beliefs.

“God is different to us now....more spirit than ever before, and more internal Most people think he has to look like something or someone...but we don't. And not being tied to what God look like, frees us.”

-The Color Purple , pg 255

How do you communicate love?

“Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved.”

-The Color Purple, pg 195

sistories litmag feb • 2021

/ 36

ORI

Fola Onifade

once, you knew everything. before you breathed, you closed your eyes and the universe stretched across your eyelids. god showed you the beginning and the end. promised you a full circle, like every blessed thing. and then they pushed you off the edge of forever when you least expected it. they yelled fly! and you stretched your arms. they yelled love! and you closed your eyes. they yelled breathe! and you opened your mouth. you cried out and you were born. they did not yell remember! and so you forgot. blessed is she who finds her way back to god and their eternal truth. for god is everything if you would only see!

"That feel just right.”

That feel like my mama used to do. Or maybe not my mama.

Maybe grandma”

What do you need to remember?

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

/ 37

she who sees juju bae

grandma is: strong- black- short stature, christian-loving-mother-tough-educated-church, elevated mother-christ like, cooks for the reverend, christ like-code switchin’-still country- manning, south carolina-grits- baltimore-edmondson village-denison street, everybody’s teacher-conservative black christian, gooood christian woman. the crux and caretaker of me. why i can fry foods with my eyes shut. my grandmommy. i am: also strong and black-cultural unfit christian-loves gospel-devoted to spirits-ancestor elevatingloving-full time witch-a hoodoo psychic juju lady-healer-code switchin’ girl from baltimore-still everybody’s teacher-caretaker-lover-friend-who hides this from my grand mommy. *she calls me at 10pm on a sunday. small talks about the pastor and if he’s healing well. small talks about land in the south. small talk about her hip aching but she’s gonna be okay- don’t worry about me just pray!*

me inside: mmm, only the people that i’ve been called to lay hands on since i was

me: i been praying grandmommy

about ten. i healed the stomach aches of my friends. but i thought everybody did that...

grandma: thank you. well samantha…..i have something i want to talk to you about, but i haven’t known how to.

me: um, kind of…?

me: okay grandmommy…

grandma: you are. do you know you are different?

grandma: i’ve been having dreams about you. and i didn’t know if it was appropriate to share.

me: *sniffles*, yes.

but i have the same one over and over and god told me that i had to tell you after i saw the

grandma: i called your father months ago and

dream again, last night.

told him you are not like everybody in this family and it’s good. he was disturbed. i let it

me: okay, i’d love to hear the dream…. me inside: ...the fuck is going on?

go. me: mmm

grandma: in it, you are outside. there are many

grandma: look, i don’t know what you over

people. they walk up to you so so sick, you

there doing…

touch them, and they walk away healed. i keep seeing that same dream.

me inside: she knows what i’m over here doing.

me: hmm grandma: but keep going. grandma: has anyone ever told you that….you are anointed?

me inside:….

/ 38 grandma: god is pleased. it is not demonic, it is

and suddenly, my burdens fall from my back and

a gift from god himself. his hands are wrapped

i know this must be what freedom feels like. how

around you. he wants you to do this. or…

foolish of me to never trust my grandmother to

she...it’s whichever you want to say. you are

know. to see. she who raised me, who picked me

covered.

up, who taught me to make greens, and black eyed peas for prosperity. as if i didn’t get this

me: *cries*

gift from somewhere. my ignorance. like i can hide from the woman that taught me to pray. the

me inside: did my grandma just say god could

one who talks to god… and hears him (or her)

be a her???

clearly, i’m foolish. clearly, this gift has taught me nothing but to hide myself from the one who

me to audience: did i say this a conservative

sees⸺my grandmommy. the one who says her

christian woman?

mother is me. assumed that her christianity could not leave room for me. but she caught me

grandma: cry. jesus wept. it cleanses.

red handed, in her dreams.

me: *sobs and cleanses*

the one who could stop a problem before it came to be. she fed the block with five loaves of bread

grandma: jesus wept, jesus wept. you are anointed.

and two fish. a proper dish, from scraps. laid hands on me when i was sick⸺the sickness quickly dipped. she who carried an entire family

me: *sobs more*

on her back? only a gifted woman could do that.

Anointed. she said her mother was me. so of

grandma: you are like my mother. she had this too. me: shocked. continues to sob. loud. grandma: you are just like my mother. your great grandmother. me: *still crying* grandma: jesus wept. grandma: your future is miraculous. god has and will bless you abundantly. and no one will stop you. he told me to tell you. me: *cries, cleanses* grandma: keep cleansing, baby

course she knows, she sees.

sistories litmag feb • 2021

DEAR NANA samiah Fuller

You will live forever in these pages.

Your memory soaked in ink.

Scribbled moments.

A Presence captured.

Emotion pictures stilled.

Animated in text.

An eternity of Dialogue trapped in the worn fibers of dead things repurposed.

Unburdened by gravity.

A life suspended.

What is it like to be weightless?

It sounds a lot like liberated.

Like freedom.

Sounds a lot like stories retold For fact-checking.

Like white heroes back brown.

Like brown skin magic tricked gold.

Like forehead kisses drenched in cocoa butter.

Like arms wrapped around necks and lengthy limbs in love.

In grief.

In pain.

Like support.

Like “I hear you” Like “I love you.”

Like “I am STILL here.”

Like a reminder that you don’t have to do this life alone.

Like this life has been lived a thousand times before.

Like you’ve overcome this life a thousand times or more.

Like we can be rewritten any moment we choose.

Let me bind you in these pages.

Remember you in hardcover.

With a soft hand.

Scrawled across forests compacted into pocket things.

This will be your story.

And I will read you for another lifetime To myself.

To my children.

And To the angels.

Who’ve read this book...

Your book before.

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"That feel just right. That feel like my mama used to do. Or maybe not my mama. Maybe grandma.”

-ALICE WALKER, PG 52, THE COLOR PURPLE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMILLE HUGHES

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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UNSAID Vashti Adedokun

Dear Grandma, I’m writing to you because you can keep a secret. And this one involves your daughter...Mom. There’s something I need to tell her, and she will not take it well. It’s hard to say where any of it started given how interconnected everything is––every decision, every step, every moment lived and unlived combined into one grey nebulous ball of Right Now. Right now, Grandma, I don’t think I can be who Mom needs me to be. I don’t think I ever can.

I pierced my nose and it all came crashing down on her that I’m rebelling against something. She’s worried. She should be. I’m worried too. But she’s worried I’m deviating from a particular standard she has in mind. She’s not wrong. She and I, we’re at an impasse, Grandma. She is losing her grip on me, and I suppose she feels it.

There is a cloud of “unsaid-ness” rising up between us. We are hurtling towards a singular realization at varying speeds and it is both known and unknown to us. Neither of us will say it or look it in its eye. I’m not sure either of us really knows what it is just yet.

The thing is, it’s only going to get worse from here. There will be no conciliation great enough for the way I will rebel. It will be utterly unforgivable, and perhaps neither of us can live with that.

You understand, Grandma, because I found your own letters when I finally got a chance to visit your home. It was my first time in Nigeria. It was my first time breathing air in the rooms where your body moved in and out. It was two weeks after the 25th anniversary of your passing. I guess you could say it was a catalyst.

I bought a ticket on a whim. I told no one. I wrote a letter home after a month. Of course Mom was furious, but she was joyful. I showed her around on FaceTime and she told me stories about you.

One night, I couldn’t sleep and I crawled into your closet. It was mostly empty except a few suitcases and clothes hanging from a rod. I opened one suitcase and found a box of sealed letters. I was amazed they’d remained unopened after all this time. Every envelope had the name Sharon scribbled across the middle. My heart pounded in my chest the whole time I read them. Each one began the same way: Sharon, my love. I tore each one open and your life danced before my eyes in the curves of your words. Then my own life did.

I haven’t told anyone about the letters yet, but I flew them back with me to the States. When I think about the future and get the unshakeable urge to crawl into a hole forever, I read your unsent letters. I think about all the thoughts and words and unsaid love that vanished the day you left Earth. I think of who I could be if I had you here with me. I think of how maybe those letters were never meant for Sharon. I love you, Grandma.

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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UNTITLED Ashley Danielle

Dear Mommy, I am writing to you for the second time in my life because I am afraid again. I can still hear the wail you let out after reading the first that I left at your altar eleven summers ago. That morning I wrote to tell you that I was with child, and had decided to opt out of the condition. Before then, I can only recall hearing you cry once, maybe twice if I allow myself to believe a fuzzy memory, so I’d all but forgotten what it felt like to hear the gut wrenching, heart aching sound that is your mother’s sob. It all came back when you called the other day. Feeling that psychic pain shaking your body as you tried to speak through your tears.

When you came into my room after finding the letter I pretended to be asleep. Maybe you could tell.

From there I felt you standing in the doorway, throwing your anger? shame? disappointment? I’ve always wondered, and if in fact it was the latter of the three at whom was it directed? Who failed who between you and I and this world we both knew would make me unfit to mother? After the groan of the garage confirmed you were gone and I found my shredded letter in your trash bin, and after a couple weeks passed by and the check-up confirmed the procedure was complete you told me that I had a chance to start over and that was that.

But then you called. And I recognized that same hurt. I cried with you this time—your tears for your grown babies, mine for all the unborn. You said never in your 55 years have you felt so powerless. You told me how deeply you hurt knowing there was nothing you could do to protect me from this world.

How much more deeply it hurt to not be able to shield me from my knowledge of it. And that’s the torment of it isn’t it? The knowing and never being able to unknow. The still having to find a way to Be within the knowing of it all.

I now know that I knew what I knew back then—this world was trying to prevent me from Being who I wanted to Be. The only difference is that now I am equipped with the language to express that “amorphous” feeling (Musser, 348). I attribute this ability to articulate my Self in part to C. Riley Snorton and the ideas presented in Black On Both Sides.

In the introduction he lays out what will become the foundation of his arguments by refuting the controlling logic of identities of race and gender as “fixed and knowable” (Snorton, 2). He asserts that “‘trans” is more about a movement with no clear origin and no point of arrival, and ‘blackness’ signifies upon an enveloping environment and condition of possibility” (Snorton, 2). For Snorton, blackness and transness must always be thought of simultaneously in order to undo the ideological hegemony that shapes Western civilizations.

/ 43 Snorton builds on Hortense Spillers’ notion of “divided flesh,” which positions the captive bodies of black people enslaved through the transatlantic trade as a “living laboratory” that “brings into focus a gathering of social realities as well as a metaphor for value” (Spillers, 208). He asks “what does it mean to have a body that has been made into a grammar for whole worlds of meaning, ” and what does that tell us about the inherent fungibility and alterability of the oppressive systems of race and gender (Snorton, 11).

In order to explain how he is thinking about blackness and transness, Snorton adds to Claire Colbrook’s definition of transitivity as “the condition for what becomes known as the human,” with “trans express[ing] primordial being from which difference is formed,” by proposing “blackness” as its appositive (Snorton, 5). According to Snorton, Blackness runs parallel—operating concurrently with Colebrook’s construction of trans—to produce the genders, sexualities, races, etc., that are in opposition to the Human, or the center framework, from which the identity categories are drawn.

Snorton contends that race is not “a secondary order of difference,” but instead “overlaps with trans to the extent that Blackness simultaneously demonstrates being and unbeing Human (Snorton, 5). To this end, Snorton parses out the definition of transitive beyond “a term that articulates the quality of passing into another condition,” to include a grammatical reading. This understanding of transitive emphasizes the functionality of trans/black in creating the conditions for the “androcentric European ethnoclass of Man as the pinnacle of being” (Snorton, 6).

The intuitive knowledge of this world and it’s methods of organization is what caused my fear about mothering eleven years ago. It scares me even more when I consider that I am the same age now as you were when you gave birth to me. How can a Black mother protect her child from being eaten up in a place that requires their oppression for its existence? Where do we go for hope and to imagine a world where those who fall the furthest outside of the category of Man are collectively nurtured? I am not writing this to you for an answer—not directly at least. The only place I know to go that reassures me of some freedom worth living and bringing new beings into Being is my mind, where I can ruminate on the ways you nurtured a queer little thing like me.

Eleven summers ago, when you told me I had a chance to make myself anew I heard you, but really I just took it to heart last year. I am making up what it means to be free as I go. The only guides I have are those who seek in similar ways, though I am sure if you look close enough you could find the possibilities anywhere. Instead I choose to remake my flesh with words and symbols of queer Black femmes, fusing new meaning into the dermis that holds Me in.

You were as shocked at my most recent additions, a tribute to Sula down my shoulder and an ode to Lauren Olamina on my back, as you were with the first I got on my forearm of the bluest and most evil eye. I want you to come with me to get the next. I’m considering a quote from Audre Lorde’s Audre Lorde’s, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: “...making moon, honor, love” (Lorde, 189). I haven’t decided what it means yet, but I know that the moment she is describing is something sacred and erotic, and the way she explores the idea of shaping a genuine Self throughout the text makes me want to try too.

/ 44 Lorde opens the excerpt paying close attention to the “beautiful Black women in all different combination of dress,” as a way to describe the gender performativity that was happening within queer Black women social circles in Queens. She notes that “clothes were often the most important way of broadcasting one’s chosen sexual role” (Lorde, 179).

Upon initial impression, it seems that everyone in the community adheres to the accepted queered norms of dress and hairstyling. Femmes style their hair “in tightly curled pageboy bobs, or piled high on their heads in sculpted bunches,” while “butches wore their hair cut shorter,” and the stylistic choices that collapsed the binary between butch and femme, such as the bermuda short weren’t as readily worn precisely because it was important “to keep the signals clear” (Lorde, 179). But, as we learn more about Kitty and the relationship between she and Lorde, we see that there is more fungibility in the expression of gender and sexual identity within the Black queer community than it may appear.

Kitty expresses a mutable sense of gender identity by wearing a jacket that “had a zipper,” on one occasion and donning “black Bermuda shorts” on another (Lorde, 180,182).

Their intimate relationship helps Lorde access a particular Self that is not rooted in identity performativity, but rather what seems to be more of a psychic awareness. When they dance, Lorde says that she “felt who [she] was and where [her] body was going, and that feeling was more important to [her] than any lead or follow”(Lorde, 182). With Kitty, the ability for Lorde to just Be, without having to worry about who is signifying what role and its corresponding set of characteristics is freeing.

There is a shared awareness of each other’s Selves that is symbolized in the matching belts that they slide “around to the side of [their] waists when no one was looking,” because they get in the way of getting closer as they dance (Lorde, 182). In describing a scene of passion, Lorde says that they “were each of [them] both together” (Lorde, 186). What is revealed in the free flowing dynamics of Audre and Kitty’s relationship is the idea of an essential, spiritual Self that is detached from the existing categories of Being. It also reveals the possibilities of Unbeing.

This scene in Zami seems to be a tangible manifestation of the “alternative spaces that Lorde opens up through the erotic,” which include alternate constructions of femininity that exist outside of systems of oppression (354). These spaces represent ways of Unbeing—or existing outside of the white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal sociaty in which we live. According to Musser, as read by Lorde, the erotic is an expression of an “authentic relationship to the self and to others” (354).

Like Snorton, Musser references the site of the mother/mothering as theorized by Hortense Spillers to suggest that reading the connection to the Black mother offers up a specific site of liberatory possibility (355). Mothering, as written by Lorde, is a future-building project. Musser reminds us not to discount the role of the figurative when Lorde says in Uses of the Erotic that “the aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible” (354). She says that Lorde’s maternal is not just an “experiential” state, but also an abstraction. When Lorde claims her identity as a mother it is a political act that opposes the history which says she does not have the right to her own flesh and blood. It also becomes a space where we see the “possibilities of maternity and femininity as articulation modes of being and connecting that have to do with optimism, care, and eccentric kinship” (356).

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I try to mother myself in the way that you demonstrate your care by doing things like leaving my workshop early to make sure you can get me at least one pack of water and toilet paper to weather any shortages, and calling me to affirm your love for me and our fight. As someone who, like Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Julia Roxanne Wallace, has committed to amplifying queer black feminist practices, “with a specific focus on those visionaries who, like Nel and Sula, have faced the dilemma of being seen as nonwhite and nonmale,” I too am interested in the life-sustaining project of mothering those that are “something else” (Gumbs, 382).

I want to read more about their Mobile Homecoming Project with you. It offers grounds of inspiration for a more liberated life for both of us. It too is a tangible representation of the spaces where we can create to practice possibility while we exist in this World. I know that you’re trying to find a plot of land on which you can garden and a mobile tiny home with which you can travel and teach people all about the doomsday prepper tips you have acquired in your free time. After all these years, I can imagine that stepping so far out of the box that has been constructed for you is probably just as scary as the reality that staying inside won’t keep you or your children safe. Still, I think it’s worth re-membering that you can make yourself anew.

You tell me how proud you are of me for choosing to live a life that sprung forth from an amorphous, erotic zone within me. When you say you wish you were an artist, I remind you that it is your garden and your knitted blankets from which I draw inspiration. And I hope that, like the participants in the Mobile Homecoming Project, my journey helps you “leave home and make home at the same time, leave a job and practice [your] own craft primarily, launch [your] own local community accountable project, or get on the road [yourself]” (Gumbs, 390).

Lorde, Audre. “Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power.” Sister Outsider, Ten Speed Press, 2007, pp. 53–59.

Lorde, Audre. “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.” Black like Us: a Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction, by Devon W. Carbado et al., Cleis Press, 2012, pp. 178–190.

Musser, Amber Jamilla. “Re-membering Audre.” “Something Else to Be.” No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies, by Patrick Johnson, Duke University Press, 2016, pp. 346–361.

Snorton, C. Riley. “Anatomically Speaking: Ungendered Flesh and the Science of Sex.” Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, University of Minnesota Press, 2017, pp. 1–136.

Spillers, Hortense. “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe.” Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 203–229.

Wallace, Julia Roxanne and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. “Something Else to Be.” No Tea, No Shade: New Writings in Black Queer Studies, by Patrick Johnson, Duke University Press, 2016, pp. 380–393.

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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ADJUSTMENTS Sonia McCallum

Hey friend, I miss you all. I miss the city. The smells. People walking by. The sound of the train in the distance at night. Kiss the kids for me.

I really miss my neighbor, Mr. Mitchell. Him retrieving our garbage cans from the street every week. The strong smell of coffee coming from his apartment. His damn cat. I could not stand that cat. Sitting in front of the door of the stoop, purring and licking everyone else but refusing to move for me. Now I miss her. At least I knew for sure she didn’t like me.

It is quiet out here. Ami is adjusting well. She has new friends. Twins. Amanda and Chad. 12 years old like her and in most of her classes. She spends a lot of time at their house. Their mother is alright. Not impolite, but judgmental and snooty. Elitist maybe. She has this way that she looks at me after I speak. She just stares, purses her lips. Ami is impressed with her. Says she is “refined”.

I told her that the word she is looking for is “Botox”. Do you know she actually got mad at me?

She hurt my feelings last week. The only person that saw was the old man. And that was worse.

He was standing there watching the students and parents file out of the auditorium. Pensive. Not smiling or frowning. Just standing there in his blue jumpsuit. Janitor stitched in white letters where his name should be. Probably too old to still be working but life is hard. Or maybe just needed something to do every day. I made a note to myself not to assume.

More aware of him than anyone else there as he was the only other black person in the building besides us. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if Derek didn’t work all the damn time. At least I wouldn’t feel like I’m out here by myself. I gave him the obligatory eye contact and head nod with the additional warm smile when we first arrived. Letting him know that not only do I see him, but I’m a friendly and we probably come from the same kind, ya know? Looking for respect in his eyes as we stood in this school full of white folks hoping he would have my back, just in case.

Looking for protection, acceptance, respect, and honor all in the face of this old man.

So when I held my arms out to Ami after her piano solo (that rocked the entire crowd btw) and she half glanced at me and ran to hug Jenna, mother of Amanda and Chad, then walked away with them, I put my arms down. I clasped my hands in front in me and held that same warm smile, blinking away the emotion bubbling up. And I didn’t dare glance back at that old man.

Visit soon, xoxo

SISTORIES LITMAG FEB • 2021

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WRITE In what ways have you learned about the inner lives of women who came before you?

How did it change the way you perceived them? How did it change the way you perceive yourself?

"My daddy lynch. My mama crazy. All my little half brothers and sisters nob kin to me..."

-The Color Purple, pg 176

Are you an elder? If not, imagine yourself as one. What might the youth of your lineage be surprised to learn about you? What wisdom do you have to impart?

"Everybody learn something in life, she say."

-The Color Purple, pg 280

COLOR

Artwork by Dakotah Carter

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COLOR

Artwork by Dakotah Carter

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COLOR

Artwork by Dakotah Carter

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WRITE Use this page to draft a letter using one of the prompts on page twenty or to reflect on the correspondence issue

WRITE Use this page to draft a letter using one of the prompts on page twenty or to reflect on the correspondence issue

READING LIST The Color Purple - Alice Walker assata: An Autobiography letter from a Birmingham jail the Memphis diary of ida b. wells An open Letter From Assata shakur Zora Neale Hurston: a life in letters Uses of the erotic as power - audre lorde An Open letter to Mary daly - audre lorde African American women in defense of ourselves An Open Letter to my sister, Miss Angela Davis - James Baldwin The Transformation of Silence into Language and action - audre lorde