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MISSION AMENDMENT \ -men(d)-m nt\ e
e
noun
1. an annual literary journal that seeks to promote discussion on issues of equality, class, race, gender, sexuality, ability and identity. 2. a socilly progressive student-run organization that advocates for social change through artistic expression, as well as provides a platform for marginalized voices in the artistic & literary community. 3. what you’re holding in your hands.
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STAFF SENIOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR Lashelle Johnson
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Gregory Alexander
MANAGING EDITOR Michael Bell
STAFF EDITORS Kathleen Brie Christinia Epperson Kaylin Kaupish Hannah Lickey Tereza McZnnes Kitty Meader Jee Yun Park Christine Taylor Jasmine Thompson Maya White-Lurie
COVER ARTIST Robalū Gibsun
PRODUCTION MANAGERS Mark Jeffries Sagal Hassan
STUDENT MEDIA DIRECTOR Greg Weatherford
BUSINESS MANAGER Lauren Katchuk
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Giving thanks to each and every force driving the success of Amendment is a colossal and moderately terrifying project. This is what I assume an Academy Award winner feels like, except that their prize is not flammable. Fortunately, I have more time and space. First, I must personally thank Lauren Katchuk, the SMC Business Manager, who fielded hundreds of questions and taught me everything I could have possibly needed to know about the business side of Amendment (and Joe Bonamassa). She comes from a literary journal background and somehow has the ability to create complex budgets and keep up with all the goings-on in the SMC. A truly amazing woman, if I ever knew one. Amendment is backed by a number of amazing women; no doubt a product of the amazing woman that created it: Liz Canfield. Amendment owes its success to her Feminist Literary Theory class that exposed the lack of a platform for marginalized voices. Professor Canfield may also be the reason two of the most incredible women found their way to Amendment’s cubicle. Maya White-Lurie and Kaylin Kaupish have been unbelievably generous with their time and I could not be more excited to announce that they will be taking over the reins as Executive Editors. They both possess ambition that is matched only by their supreme intelligence, much like the former Executive Editor: Mari Pack. Though we give credit to the amazing women at the helm, people of every gender, race, and class bolster Amendment. And we have been fortunate enough to have widespread support and a team of exceedingly talented people. Among those people are Student Media Director Greg Weatherford and Production Manager Mark Jeffries. Greg Weatherford had the thankless job of Devil’s
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Advocate this year, or so it seemed. Armed with tough questions and indisputable know-how, he broke down Amendment’s defenses and made certain each and everything published was in the SMC and Amendment’s best interest. Mark Jeffries breathed life into each project and made Amendment’s words beautiful. Without him, there would be no masterfully crafted posters, Zines, t-shirts, or journal. His guidance and knowledge are irreplaceable. The final irreplaceable person this year is Executive Editor Greg Alexander. He was the resident genius and rock star who kept the editors happy and always knew what food to get for meetings. He has the ability to remain calm at all times which was of great use when I spent an entire day nearly hyperventilating because of the amount of work to do. He took on projects without prompting and handled author correspondence with tact and professionalism. I cannot thank him enough. All of these people gave Amendment its voice this year, but none of it would have been possible without the Student Media Center as a whole. Mari called it “Amendment’s home base” and there is no more apt description. The SMC is where Amendment lives. So many thanks to the SMC, where we are free to create. And thanks to you, reader. You make it all worthwhile. Cheers to another great issue, Lashelle Johnson Senior Executive Editor
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EDITORIAL NOTE Working at a literary journal is among the least thankful tasks that someone can embark upon. You’re largely anonymous, and your readership will never be all that big. It’s part of the job; you and your editors aren’t the stars of the show. Really, the authors aren’t either. It’s about the work, and the message behind that work. I don’t want to upstage anything with a long editorial note about my experiences or what I’ve learned or anything like that, because that’s not what Amendment is about. Amendment is about providing a platform to marginalized voices, and I’d rather not filter anyone’s voice through the lens of my rambling. This is a collection of art, written and visual, some of it ugly, some of it beautiful, all of it meaningful. If it’s in here, that’s where it belongs. Greg Alexander Executive Editor
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CONTENTS WRITING Skittles by C.F. Molina
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College Grad Indentured to Serve by Robalū Gibsun
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Love letter to You at 85 by Adrienne Creger
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Prude by Angelica Fuchs
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Basketball by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.
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Illiterate by Tari Holmbeck
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If by C.F. Molina
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Old Thoughts Reappearing and Disappearing by Andrew Harrison
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Family Trauma in the form of Litany by Robalū Gibsun
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Ethnic Tourism by C.F. Molina
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Damned, This Child by Kathleen Brien
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Chains by James Patterson
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Dear America by Maya White-Lurie
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ART Self Portrait by Kathleen Brien
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Bedroom Theatre by Gelnn Jodun
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Dolls by Sara Clarken
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Americana by Jasmine Thompson
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It’s Gorgeous When You Die by Robalū Gibsun
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Bambi Age 19 by James Patterson
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BlackMaled by Robalū Gibsun
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FLASH FICTION WINNERS Manhood (First Place) by Gabbie Robinson
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Sexuality (Second Place) by C. Kindred
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“Poverty Draft” (Honorable Mention) by C. Kindred
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Interracial Dating (First Place) by C. Kindred
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Masturbation (Second Place) by Kathleen Brien
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Masturbation (Third Place) by McKeane E. Bennet
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ART 10 by Jasmine Thompson
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RVA Puts Out by Rachel Woodward
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Aisha by Aisha Hameed
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Onions and Apples by Jasmine Thompson
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Meechy by James Patterson
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WRITING
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Pimples by Joshua Braunstein
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I weep for their Wretched Beauty by Hannah Lickey
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By the Winners by Alexander Carrigan
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Mississippi Love Song by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.
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Drones by Dana Carlson
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Dermatillomania by Kathleen Brien
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Deirdre, Mother of Sons by Kaylin Kaupish
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The Equivalence of Nature and the Modern Woman by Kameron Jones
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Splintered Thoughts by Robalū Gibsun
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120 Minutes of Sodom by C.F. Molina
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The Family Reunion by Hannah Lickey
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how the West was lost by Lashelle Johnson
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YOU MAD?! by Robalū Gibsun
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W
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R
I
T
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Skittles by C.F. Molina
This right here? This is the counter-revolution. Occupy nothing, fuck up what you can’t. We’re all drowning in the melting pot and no one gives a shit as they wear dashikis and sombreros and everything is shangri-la-di-da And don’t cry over spilt milk cry over spilt heritage cry over my dead body cut down by an uncaring system in which we were forced to mate until we all became gray and unintelligible my balls broken and my spirit damned struck down before you & me & gOD hIS lips to yOUR ears This shit right here? This is for every kid who grew up knowing nothing of their culture but fried foods and reggaeton and yankees fitteds who need to shave their damn heads to feel connected to something bigger than themselves For all the good that integration did for us we’ve done fucked up with assimilation. And I tried to bare my soul in español but the shit just wouldn’t work I drowned in 20 years of the “good” kind of white person, telling me to be me but not in a threatening way we don’t want to scare off someone who might feel bad they’ve been chaining up a spic in the backyard of their thoughts but they didn’t mean it But I don’t hate white people 1
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lord knows I love my dad even though he just doesn’t get it, and neither do you and a documentary you half-watched and quartertook in about El Rey del Timbal isn’t going to cut it you weren’t there, you missed the joke This right here? This shit right here? This is the cost of doing business because freedom isn’t free and Mad Men doesn’t speak to kids who grew up on plantains and chicharrones who dreamed of playing piano in a salsa band who don’t know why they feel so sad when they see an american flag and are too embarrassed about their Spanish to call their grandparents
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College Grad: Indentured to Serve by Robalū Gibsun
Lord, forgive us our student loan debts, as we forgive our pre(debt)ors. And lead us not into high-priced higher education but deliver us from big banks that bind our generation. Amen. If “In God We Trust” is our scripture, how did we get cash-cropped out of the picture? Picture post-high school graduation: After 13 years of hard labor we proclaimed our emancipation. So we held our diplomas like slaves clenching limited edition prints of Amendment Thirteen. Suddenly, summer leaves and ALL ABOARD: the Underground Railroad to Opportunity. But my departure was delayed ‘cause I had the wrong numbers on my GPA. And my parents weren’t paid, so my ticket to freedom wasn’t free. ‘Til just my luck, Uncle Sam pulled up in a dented Chevy Venture with a taxi sign on the roof that spelled out: COLLEGE. He rolled down the window and spoke with a grin: “Neph! You’n think you can afford to roll with me? See, for a fixed rate on your liberty, I will loan you thousands of dollars you have never seen. With your degree, you can get you a high-paying job and make so much money your wallet will scream. You’ll be swimming in waves of green from sea to shining sea. Then you can buy you a big house, a Mercedes, and find you a wife to pop out 2.5 babies. You can diet, straighten your nappy hair, dye it, and then brace and bleach your crooked off-white teeth to get that picket fence smile like them stars on TV. And forget bonds, you can invest in your wants and neglect your needs. Then, as you sleepwalk in the chubby smog of your American Dream, you can
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cough up the money—to pay back to me. All you gotta do is sign on the promissory dotted line. Come now neph, we family! I WANT YOU to trust in yo’ Uncle Sammie.” So I listened to society, packed my bags, threw them in the back and stepped on in. Then, looked him dead in his dollar sign eyes, and told that drug lustin’ love rustin’ oil slick talkin’ outta his gas guzzlin’ elephant donkey mind relative of mine, “Aight! Fine. Now shut up and drive.” Years pass, and I’m teary-eyed, wallet dried, in the driver’s seat shackled to steer this government taxing taxi back seat packed with stacks of textbooks I can’t buy back. And I drive like a road-raged slave tryin’ to escape his fate. But after 4 years of speeding through subsidized red-lights and fines, there is no more Moses conducting the ride, no more boarders to cross to get off this plantation, no more Mason-Dixon line. Took me until my senior year of college to learn how to be a wooly-eyed black sheep lost in the herd. And after all of our diplomas and degrees burn, we’ll be career-field negros, indentured to serve—for the rest of our cottonpickin’ lives.
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Love Letter to you at 85 by Adrienne Creger
I met you—fresh-faced-peach-fuzzy as a kitten, twenty six, glowing brighter than the string lights on your Parkwood balcony: hot awkward blushing silence floated lazy like fog over small words that tried to stand tall, like proud, lonely trees slowly reaching branches across space to one day touch leaf to leaf. Cool autumn night air, meticulously chosen red wine and a dry pomegranate (because I’d never had one); your strong profile and “you’re not beautiful—you’re striking” is what your mother told you when you were like twelve and you said “Mom, I’m ugly” but she was wrong; you’re the eerie red sands of the Badlands, the unexplored seafloor, the deepest crater on the moon—in June. Well we stood with our roots in the ground and our branches stretched out and one day we couldn’t tell whose leaves were whose because we’d overlapped and so we pulled our roots out of the earth and we left our homes—and your dad’s sick and your mom’s unwell and you feel guilty and you’re scared to think of a year from now, five, ten, but you know that if you don’t do it now you may never—and so we packed it up in boxes and in bags, we washed it and folded it and stacked it neatly until we ran out of space, and so we crammed it into whatever it would fit in, messy spilling over edges, bulging corners of our minds—and we ran. Well I watched you grow from woman into myth into woman and back again and I tried to keep up with you but you’re smart and you’re good and you’re strong and I want to be more like you, I want to be more you, I want to be inside but trees can only cross branches and sway together in the wind and hope that if the other tree falls its weight will bring them crashing down together—giant and epic and splintery. I found your first gray hair in the back of your head where you couldn’t see it and I swore I’d never tell you and I watched wrinkles as they formed in your face from all the things you’d felt but when you’d say “I’m getting wrinkles” I’d tell you “you’re crazy—I don’t see any” I’d say “you’re fresh5
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faced-peach-fuzzy as a kitten, like the day I met you” and you’d smile like you didn’t believe me and I knew you didn’t and you knew I knew you didn’t but we’d let it sit in the air like smoke floating at the ceiling of a dark room where said and silent secrets ricochet off the walls and seep into the carpet. I’ve watched you carry it watched you dig holes and bury it watched it rise and watched you ferry it back down rarely sharing it but wearing it and I’ve watched it bubble over and watched you take that too like any other thing a single day can do. And now your skin is papery thin like dying red leaves—with brown spots and tiny veins—that float down from trees to be walked on to dry up to disintegrate back into soil. Now you don’t go running and we don’t need to talk much and sometimes we don’t remember and our parents have been dead for years and we had to learn how to do that when the trees around us dropped one by one until there were just two standing, but stooping, swaying more and more in softer and softer winds and one day one will snap and fall—giant and epic and splintery. You always thought I talked too loud in the morning well I thought you snored too loud at night or maybe we made a soft roar, the kind like waves breaking sandy shores or snow falling heavy from black sky like static and well still I see you fresh-faced-peach-fuzzy as a kitten, eighty five but twenty six, glowing brighter than the string lights on your Parkwood balcony.
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Prude by Angelica Fuchs
Prude Is not the right word. Celibate Is also incorrect. Those are choices Which asexuality is not. Perhaps I must lay it out for you; I am not interested. Asexual does not mean that I am a filter feeding sponge that can mate with myself. No, I’m not about to change anytime soon So don’t keep trying to shove ‘the right guy’ under my nose. I’ll just break his heart like the last half dozen guys who asked me out. Don’t try to blame it on my father. Don’t try to blame it on my mother. My chemistry isn’t wrongAnd no, I’m not just gay, lesbian, or bi. Please don’t ask again about ‘that boyfriend’ I don’t have, grandpa, Or how much longer I intend to wait to have children I’m not even out of college for Christ’s sake! So let’s review: Asexuality does not mean I’m a prude, Celibate, A tease, Or holding out for a hero. It means I’m not interested.
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Basketball by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.
Aminatta Sumah From 1992- 2010 Was the best there ever was A breadwinner She averaged 2 victories in her lifetime, I’m living proof She rebounded from high blood pressure and diabetes To go on and win the respect of those she cared for A Master of the game clock While wearing the blue and white, She averaged 15 assists to the elderly in their last minutes as players on this earth And while wearing the hug and the smile She averaged even more to hurt tummies, bad days, and puberty She was the strongest coach I ever had, A mother In her last days She laid on her hospital bed Smiling, Looked onto her children as if “victory” Was stamped on our foreheads, because She knew we would champion her after She lost this fight I sat, on the sidelines of her bedframe, Eyelids peeled to the ceiling Hoping, God would descend And teach me the skills to assist from this bench, Her eyes, quenched from the well that had formed in mine So She smiled And the IV sobbed for her. A hospital couldn’t cure like the basketball court did So I left, Check ball 8
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Mama, I taught your daughter how to dribble once Told her, the way a basketball splashes against the asphalt Could keep tears from doing the same. And as long as we kept our heads up Nothing could steal from us again But Ma, Life plays games Little sisters just aren’t Conditioned to compete in, And neither am I But when I play, its like I found the cure to cancer In an orange pill So I inject the ball into the sky Wishing, its sudden swishing Will heal both you and I I must shoot Every chance I get I shoot Every chance to Win The game Life didn’t give you the chance to— You’re the reason why I love layups You were Gentle and Swift You’re the reason why I love Fast breaks You were Pressure but a Gift You are why I refuse to ever have the ball stolen from me Life, stole you from me And I’ll keep drawing fouls in the paint If it means, every shot, I hit, brings me closer to the win To you, until victory is stamped on my forehead When we lost, You 9
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On that hospital bed It seemed like running Suicides Was the only way out of the game. The score has been Cancer—1 My sister and I–Zero But I refuse To lose anymore I often wondered why people Always got so passionate arguing over scores: I know now, That when you can’t escape the game life plays— Every point, every parent Counts.
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Illiterate by Tari Holmbeck
One of us is illiterate. It’s rude to point fingers, so I’ll just point toes[swathed in the filth of Their servile kisses] -in the general direction of who? Of what? Of blank. Blank face. Blank mind. Blank check. “Do what you want with me.” Pas encore… mon petit chou chou. It’s getting late, so sorting out your lights and darks won’t lighten the load. But the Hive volunteers to do your heavy lifting. [unlike your half awake lids] Darling, be still. Let Them lay and behold you. Feed the leeches, won’t you? Besides… One of us is illiterate.
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If by C.F. Molina
When I kill myself I’m going to make sure I shave my head And strategically shape my beard And drape myself in foreign cloth When I kill myself I want to make sure that they report on my death properly “Latino kid finally offs himself ” That way Maybe it’ll be less sad for everyone When I kill myself I’ll be sure to make it quiet Don’t want to scare the neighbors And my dog will be at someone else’s house And my boyfriend will be out of town When I kill myself I’m going to be alone just Me and a Gun And when I kill myself you won’t have to ask why You’ll know I felt the word faggot burned on my psyche I felt the smoke sting my eyes and squeeze every last drop of blood from my body I felt, and I felt, and I felt Until I didn’t.
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Old Thoughts Reappearing and Disappearing by Andrew Harrison
It used to be “all my thoughts are circles”a self deceptive enjoyment I held up of endless futile perpetual motion. The irony that my memory will disappear, and no change in humanity will emanate in me. My stuck comes in cycles, my cycles at least once a month. Back then, time and time again, I destroyed myselfit can’t be done by anyone else! Three years I wish I hadn’t felt culminating in taking amphetamines that shouldn’t have been dealt. Patience, and a new sense of virtue nursed me back to health. It used to be, “We’re all still growing!” A self deceptive expression to a high-school crowd easily shrugged off. It was then I found we’re stuck, there’s no living in the now, just larger circles, and as much as I try to deny it, I can’t defy the grip of external stimuli. See us conditioning ourselves? Outward expressions and instant sensual gratification – false! Gained with recent technology, no effort, sacrifice or strain, just the exchange of a dead man’s face, a bittersweet embrace, love, drugs, dreams, and money to chase. It’s an intricate game we nonetheless are forced to play. Inevitably, impatient, I still seek my thrills, end up vomiting up my moral fibers out of infatuation into the fires of sexual passion incited by two loves
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I’ll probably never get to touch again. My keen ability of avoiding rationality keeps me in circles arranged concentrically. The largest, life, is just the slowest moving.
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Family Trauma in the Form of Litany (After Gabrielle Calvocoressi) by Robalū Gibsun
The wood got carved and the drum is beating. A goat got skinned and the drum is beating. Skin dried and tightened and the drum is beating. Mother barely paid rent and the drum is beating. Father pay to stay bent and the drum is beating. I graduate and pack for college; the son is leaving— Night moves in—dark, and the drum is beating. End of summer gets red hot and the drum is beating. Bucket drummer’s on the block and his drum is beating. I watch; dollars get tossed so the drum keeps beating. Scrubs and chickenheads flock and the club is beating. Party ends at 3 o’ clock and the clubs are bleeding. We ain’t got time for jobs so we ain’t sleeping. We clock-in on city corners and the drum is beating. Poor mothers try to warn us that “The drum is beating!” Too black for blue light’s to ignore us, the drum is beating. Crown Vic bass line drops; the drum is beating. Thunder over machine gun pops; ‘ sure the drum is beating? Flash! Gasp! Drummer boy got shot, body went into shock, tightened up like drum skin, his drum is bleeding. Black girl cries “HELP—the drummer is wheezing!” Blue lights ignore us, the drummer ain’t breathing. Winter walks heavy, a new drum is beating. Streets crack like levies and the drum is beating. Father smokes crack, Mother can’t get a break, Father’s lips cracked, Father comes home late— Scheming’ asking for money, Mother ain’t got that; crackhead Father cracks Mother’s piggy bank. Feet drum down the stairs, Father is leaving. Mother’s heart—breaks, school—breaks, day—breaks son comes back—home to a familiar, broken place. I steps over shards. Mother changed the locks; Overtime work is her gauze ‘cause her love is bleeding. For three days Father was gone, now the door is beating. 15
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The door is beating. Like an offbeat heart, the fuckin’ door is beating. His voice is peaking. Neighbors are peeking. Out of fear, I pretend to not hear or see him— Mother says she’ll call the cops, Father is leaving. Mother got another job and the drum is beating. Mother can’t get a break, Mother’s back ‘bout to break, Mother’s back at the bank and the drum is beating. Her father, my grandfather’s kidneys are shot— He calls, says he sees dark blood when he’s peeing, phone drops, not enough time on the watch in his heart, his heart, the drum, is barely beating. Father God, my Father’s father died, and now my Father’s lost. Only got one left, I can’t take another loss— the drum is beating. Our hearts dance the fastest, “Hurry! Don’t care how high the ambulance is! The drum is beating!” Family’s been pricing caskets, the drum is beating us out of our home. Rent went up, Mother broke down and took out a loan; the drum is beating. My bible pages flip; in the valley of the book, I see the shadow of death—come in creeping. Floorboards are creaking. Room’s dark. I’m not sleeping. Three-three-three on the clock; my heart, the drum, is beating. I squeeze my eyes and pray the Lord to deliver us from our stress, but the Landlord can’t afford the mercy to forgive us our debts.
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Ethnic Tourism by C.F. Molina
So, some white lady comes up to my girlfriend and asks if she can touch her ponytail and she’s like “Sure, go ahead” and the white lady is like “Oh my God, I love your hair, it’s so pretty!” and my girlfriend is like “Thank you” and then the white lady goes on her merry way satisfied at her one black interaction of the year and I’m like, “Woooooow” and my girlfriend nods and then I’m like “Where does she get the nerve to do that? Holy shit. It’s like, congratulations, you’ve touched some curly hair, you’ve had the black experience and now you can go on with your life now that you’ve run your hands through an afro-american scalp and I’m just kind of in awe. How are you not more mad about this?” and she says, “I’m used to it.”
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Damned, This Child by Kathleen Brien
You raised three kids morals so strong, they don’t need a Lord to justify them. You raised three kids who avoid being assholes not because someone said to them “Son, be kind to those below you, to those less fortunate, the sinners, them wretched non-believers.” You raised three kids who screw up and don’t think to be forgiven because “God forgives them”your kids claim responsibility. You raised these three kids who can think to and for themselves inside their shame, and outside of hymnals. You raised three kids, and all you can say is “Christ, where did we go wrong?”
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Chains by James Patterson
Chains are for slaves, Rings are for kings In a fat back pork-barrel society, I’d rather live off of collard greens It seems Everybody’s working for the weekend—the “Freakend” Twerkin Jerkin’ Shakin’ Showin’ off they ass but there’s no toilet AND I’M PISSED This is to the penis-less poppas who push-out playboy pin-up daughters and chicks who push-up on sick-minded simps who sip grey goose, treat them foul and never look them in the eyes cause’ they only want a chicken-head for her breast and thighs Still they all leave the coop and go back to dorm rooms to do the do and wash their dirty laundry too. The rinse cycle attempts to pour anew, But their brains are already washed and tumble dried. Their minds are all crispy, golden, and fried. And the cycle keeps going on a line that keeps growing Every girl wants to be a Queen But some rather look for rooks than Kings. Every boy wants to be a King But gets played like a Pawn Polished up and shining like a Knight ‘til dawn Everybody’s stuck in bed sleepin Too tired to listen to their parents preachin’ 19
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Everybody’s too hung over from the weekend to make eye contact with the Bishops and deacons BUT IT’S A SHAME! People in the church and the club are looking the same Women wearing short skirts, singing songs, and spitting game While men on microphones spitting scripts with gold chains AND I’M PISSED CAUSE EVERYBODY’S CROSSED UP! Chains are for slaves Rings are for kings Free yourself from these material things. Chains are for slaves Rings are for kings You keep the pork Give me the collard greens.
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Dear America by Maya White-Lurie
Twenty years ago, when the doctor cut, cut, cut me from my mother, he held crying strawberry-cream caked me at arms length and said to my father, “Tell her what you’ve got.” Father creased his brow, eyed the fresh-cut umbilical chord, blubbered to my mother: “It’s a boy. I know we hoped for a girl, but he’s beautiful, beautiful...” The doctor roared: “Look again, Dad!” My parents wept in joyful harmony with my cries of cold confusion – I was hungry for breast milk – but you’d think daddy had never seen a vulva before! Oh, does that make you uncomfortable? When I say vulva, vagina, clitoris, uterus, do bugs scurry up your spine? Are you scared of me because I’m proud of mine? Well, get over it – this is my body – I’ll use the words I choose, words that fit like the sweater Grammy knit. Just try to pull out those stitches, shrink the seams. You can’t. And if you try to wash my mouth out with soap, I’ll stare you down and spit the suds in your eyes. Since you’ve decided to dissect my words like the Jane Does chilling in line for the crematorium, I’ll tell you, time is precious; let’s save a few seconds. I am a masochistic poly-picto-tricho-dendro-stigmatosapiosexual human, with an unquenchable quest for complete equality, and a stubborn search for a room of my own – lockable preferably – I am a sister, not bound by blood but by love, and I am a boat slicing through dangerous seas, at my back the gale force of three centuries of formidable foremothers who took up arms against their oppressors with the same limbs that lifted little ones. Don’t give me that look, the up-down-nose-wrinklehead-tilt as you slide away to say: “So, you’re one of those… feminists…” The label sticks to your tongue as you look at me like I’m an apricot rotting at the back of your fridge, forgotten. “Oh, I see….” Yeah, 21
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you do see. Nobody writes this body but me. And excuse me if my verbosity edges toward pomposity – modesty is not my strength and I’ve never known when to shut up – but go ahead, call me crazy. If sanity is subservience, I want no part of it. Yes, I am insane to fight for the same rights every man is born into, for wanting to own my body and be judged by the depth of my character, not the size of my cups or the width of my hips. I dream of a world where people understand that having a vagina doesn’t mean I need a dick in it or a baby out of it, a world where women walk down the street at night, unbothered by all the tiny noises that punctuate the darkness. Label me a madwoman, lock me in your attic – do it – I’ll rattle your walls, shake your floorboards with the power MY VOICE. And yes, I am no saint, I admit it; I have been the oppressor, seen a person from afar and pondered a binary brand, judged and burned flesh with my gaze while reaping the benefits of my privilege and I have danced in concert with all the other colonials. Of this I am ashamed. But this is not the stomach twisting guilt that compels me to my room to cry. No. This disgrace fuses with my fire for justice, creating an energy known only at the center of stars, propelling me to the streets, classrooms, bedrooms, boardrooms, screaming: “Let us erase these conventions, these tortures with the faces of tradition, explode the canon with a BOOOOM! and a swwwwffffissssshhhh! Take my hand, together we will fight for the impossible dream!” … And when those thoughts, those brainwashed unnatural, colonial, trifling transplants, flit through my head, threatening to take root, I have to catch them, snatch them, hurl them to the floor with the force to crash through the foundation of this country, to crush the bedrock of the master’s house. Chip away at his concrete bit by bit by bit. 22
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No, No. I won’t shut up, won’t go back down, won’t go back to the kitchen or the closet or the nursery. Know what I will do? SPEAK LOUDER, because I don’t think you can hear me, I will stand up behind every microphone, plant myself in front of every camera, every courthouse and clinic and capital building because, America, we need to talk.
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A
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T
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Self Portrait
Kathleen Brien
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Bedroom Theatre
Glenn Jodun
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Dolls
Sara Clarken
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Americana
Jasmine Thompson
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It’s Gorgeous When You Die
Robalū Gibsun
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Bambi Age 19
James Patterson
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BlackMaled
Robalū Gibsun
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FLASH FICTION W I N N E R S
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Manhood – First Place by Gabbie Robinson
Manhood is the achievement to acquire to make sure you’re not becoming a woman.
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Sexuality – Second Place by C. Kindred
Ma, these jeans aren’t too tight! I just don’t think your idea of masculinity fits.
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“Poverty Draft” – Honorable Mention by C. Kindred
Conscription is over The President has declared that no man will be forced to fight our wars That privilege goes to the poor. They graduate high school to attend the classrooms of combat.
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Interracial Dating – First Place by C. Kindred
Kool aid stripper Run back to your frosted queen Our backs turn to you I wanted you all to see That a human cares for me
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Masturbation – Second Place by Kathleen Brien
Nobody told me I’d go to hell, or that kittens would die, but one teacher-parent conference they found out what I had been doing under my small blanket not large enough to even really cover me. I thought it was a secret nobody knew but me. But they said from the table “Don’t do that anymore” to five or six year old me.
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Masturbation – Third Place by McKeane E. Bennett
Flourescent screen, Divine array of light-hearted And sound, the sound of pleasure, And lust. Take me from my Body – to let me feel some Body – I Need to stop. My kids will never know, they can Never Grow Out of these towels.
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10
Jasmine Thoampson
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RVA Puts Out
Rachel Woodward
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Aisha
Aisha Hameed
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Onions and Apples
Jasmine Thompson
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Meechy
James Patterson
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W
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I
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N
G
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Pimples Braunstein
They line my face like tear drop tattoos commemorating the fallen soldiers I have destroyed. Every piece of fried chicken, every potato chip, every French fry on the memorial of my face as a god damn pimple. And I am embarrassed by my skin, as every blemish is etched into my being for all to see, but then it hits me. It is now time to be Proactive because I have this good clean and clear sound that cannot be accucontained until I am cetaphilled, but I am still embarrassed by my skin. Red dots cover my face like a team of marine snipers saying, “Sir we have the shot,” but they never take it. Little red stars littering the galaxy of my face. Mars is on my forehead next to this moon crater of a scar, the big dipper on my left cheek and Orion’s belt across my upper lip and I can feel a supernova forming on my chin and I am embarrassed by my skin. It’s like acne is a brand new artist and my epidermis is his breakout—single. I stand on stage at a poetry slam and I am embarrassed by my skin. These white heads on my white face and I am embarrassed by my skin. He stands on stage and talks about being handcuffed and charged as black in public and I am embarrassed by my skin. She recites a poem about Africa and how they enslaved her kin and I am embarrassed by my skin. I begin to feel this guilt within as I am embarrassed by my skin. But what you might not know is that I also belong to a tribe.
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You might have heard of us. Some refer to us as the chosen people. You may be familiar with the pyramids my ancestors built in Egypt. You may also be familiar with the term concentration camp because the only difference between us is the color of our skin and the implements they used to kill us. Even today we still judge books by their covers, but if you open us up the letters are still black and the pages are still white. My people forever shackled to the stereotype of shekels and yours forever enslaved to 400 years of rage. And they continue to linger with phrases like, “Damn, they Jewed me.” and a generation casually tosses around the “N” word when if 50 years ago someone called you that they would be picking their teeth up off the pavement. So, I am not embarrassed by my skin because this acne will fade, but our history will not. We can rise above hate with our words and our actions. So I stand here as an example of how looks can be deceiving. And this poem is simply a reminder that not everything is so black and white.
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I Weep for their Wretched Beauty by Hannah Lickey
When the anger swells it cannot be contained and drips from my pores covering me in a sweat of hate, and cocoons myself in self-loathing. Each day it worsens Each failed attempt Every flaw Outstanding! the figure in the mirror is my evil enemy refracted light throwing back at me this atrocious monstrosity of flesh and fat the worthless bag of meat ripping at the seams, stretched and filled to fit the girth of three NORMAL people and so I smash my fist against the mirror watch the blood ooze from my knuckles then smear the broken reflection red. because I know no one could ever love someone over 250 pounds Society has told me and shown me all my life that I am not worthy of love or praise Because of my size Because of my shape Because of my weight The fact is that I am sub human. I am not seen I am not here I am only a bloated corpse that occasionally becomes animated when the hate cannot be contained.
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By the Winners by Alexander Carrigan
New semester, new history class, new history textbook. I’m always fascinated by these books. A ten pound compendium of time. Amazing. The pages are a little too white for me. The history looks too clean. It’s only lightly addressing what happened. It’s pure hindsight bias. I’d have made the pages red, if I’m to accurately represent the past. I think the pages are too strong. We’re alive because someone made it out. Most subjects in the book didn’t. I’d make the pages brittle, like a dead soldier left in a ditch, where the slightest tug will tear his limbs. Such elaborate eulogies, written after the bombs fell, after the fires died down, after the corpses were buried. I better start reading. We’ll be in here soon. Just another entry carefully constructed for mass consumption.
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Mississippi Love Song by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.
Vulnerability is the skill to Remove your emotional jacket and feel The chill of someone else’s eyes on your soul But the conversations that follow Will spark a flame around your heart Until it becomes a blazer So when her and I talk We are never cold I feel her hands sink into the creases of my ribs She knows a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach Her gated lips protect with passion But if I knock hard enough with mine I hope to coax her tongue From defense to strike me down with a kiss Her front is tough, The twang in her speech Are vice grips So every time she speaks Her words cut through my barbwire vision Allowing me to see love without pain She reminds me of Begging for answers and actually receiving them Her hugs, like pillows Soft, No judgment She sleeps next to me face to face That way when I awake she is there to make my nightmares know her by name And when I return to dreamland the worst that can hap57
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pen is that she lets me dream about her and oversleep class the next day We wake up in the middle of the night to discover ourselves in each other’s eyes She kisses me after I burp Fuck that I wouldn’t kiss me after I’ve burped I begin to remember She hates her color I hate that she hates her color I don’t want to see her imprisoned on an island of prisms Where the only escape is an origami boat of self worth, Sailing through the hurricane Of learning to love yourself So if it rains I will hold her like umbrellas hold the sky If the sun beats I will join her hands with mine And we will dance to the rhythm of our skin tones Never missing a step Hips clasped Souls attached, like skin Djembe singing, Bass swinging Hearts sinking into stomachs Fleeting, like doves
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I told her I wont write her poems because she is not Just another piece But a piece of me The twitch in my right eye Because the one in the left is my mother So when I envision the future, I see important women in it
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Drones by Dana Carlson
The people in the art galleries can stand before A Rothko for hours and deduct no meaning From the liberal paint swathes of red and blue Just as I can deduct no meaning From you and blame it all on God But what is this fate we speak of when there is no meaning To life that the constellations or the Bible can give to me: It’s an outdated transcript that explained before science but today has no meaning Just like a page of poetry to the average fraud Soliciting sex in library aisles with knowledge of iambic pentameter having no meaning To him other than the promise of romps as disappointing as what’s in his pants But he is hungry to whisper cunning phrases with no meaning Into the ears of naive girls, pubescent girls, hopeful girls that still pray, still have faith That their middle class lives will be more someday but really there’s no meaning To love because it is a fallacy, an artificial confection no more natural Than the engineered preservatives that keep our groceries fresh and give us cancer.
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Dermatillomania by Kathleen Brien
I dig my nails like anchors into wood. Wood of soft and peachy skin, roughened up and split by my needy grip of long and slender limbs. A tree with broken bark – my arms with torn up skin, busted up, by a wood chipper hand, small welts form on my skin surface. It’s the afterglow of piercing nails. In my vacated mind, thoughts of dull pain fill. Sawdust settles after close examination; there’s a drug of satisfaction in the puss, the seed, the sap of this bending tree.
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Deirdre, Mother of Sons by Kaylin Kaupish
“All mothers are slightly insane.” – Catcher in the Rye I was born into a family meant to die out All of the daughters, told by their mothers, Do not have children. But the daughter would become women And eventually become mothers. So it was a family meant to die out, But cursed to go on forever. Christ, that sounds even worse. Matthew. Matthew had been the worst. We watched him loose his brain strands Give into the voices in his head And disappear behind a veil of cigarette smoke Until mother had to send him away To the land of barred windows I’m the only one left to visit him Not that mother’s dead I guess a part of him knows I’m there The sister who will share a cigarette with him Henry. Henry had been saved. Mother hid him in her house Of gold, antique jewelry And purple, pleated coats Fuck, after Matthew, can you blame her? But now Henry won’t come out Even though mother’s dead I guess you could call that being saved. Deirdre. Deirdre was the last hope. She could end the line, stay the madness Stop cold the delusions that got passed down 62
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From generation to generation Like a cursed inheritance. I’m Deirdre, and my mother told me to never have children. So, we’d die out. Our glitch in the evolutionary process Would be over and forgotten. The family born to die out; It had struggled so hard to keep afloat. Thrashing, fighting, and gasping for air. Shit, we always were a stubborn lot. But the daughter kept becoming women, The women kept wanting sons, The sons kept being born. And the sons kept running rampant and going down, And taking the others down, In no blaze of glory, But a slump that you couldn’t get out of. Deirdre, don’t have children. But I was never one to do something I didn’t want to do. So why be somebody who doesn’t do what I want to do? I always wanted a little boy with dark, curly hair. I’ve decided this evolutionary glitch isn’t dying out. I’ve decided this is as much part of human history as your fancy sanity. Who said those in their right mind get to write the fucking history books? Who said we are a blot on humanity’s flawless face? It wasn’t that flawless to begin with. So I’ll have my little boy with dark, curly hair. And I’ll name him Adam.
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The Equivalence of Nature and the Modern Woman by Kameron Jones
It is to have firm yet transferable roots and leaves that are broad enough to properly thrive, yet slim enough to store hope; in expectation that those roots are able to grow and expand past the shit they have been planted in and have used for survival from season to season, hoping to bear fruit the plant will never consume itself– unless left untouched and withered to fall and rot at the foundation of the trunk; to become nutrient in the dirt and shit, so that the whole can bear fruit once more. To be born with the sin of man between my legs, and the continuance of man between my hips, though expected to walk delicate, as if that weight were not present in every moment — or to carefully decide today and everyday with which lips shall I forge an encounter with those of equal or greater importance than myself — because everyone is trying to get ahead and most are 64
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wanting to get down so who is to judge those few who just want head from those who are trying to get up? To be handled like limestone– heavy, earthy, and concrete to the eye, until placed in curious hands, the same hands that had just marveled at how it had gleamed in the sun, and the realization occurs that the stone is easily broken, broken into fragments and dust of the gem it once was and when combined with the right chemicals can create a volatile reaction, leaving only the stone to be blamed for its explosive properties. It is to sprint through a cross-country race or climb down a burning ladder– both built of power and the feverish imagination of the image beyond those buttons– both with qualification based upon predetermined molds, and a rare finish line sponsored by those who must have fucked me in order for me to have made it so far. It is to be unaccounted for the bountiful; the environment provided 65
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until air could safely enter and exit our lungs, the nurture as constant and engulfing as the sun, until we learned to trust the moonlight as well. To be seen as a collective of gentle giants, and cut down by the masses and used as resource and when told of the future consequence, to be answered with the promise of progression and the bettering of the majority.
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Splintered Thoughts by Robalū Gibsun
The stars are tangled in the nappiness of night. My alarm clock combs my mind out of its nap. The earth gives birth to the sun and still I can’t unmask my dark or smash that stereotypical skeleton. Ribs, be a fence of uncaged seduction. Lips, speak against my enraged induction into the Hall of severed balls and voices as silent as starlight: The humble hue man was labeled black and wild demasculinized before his woman’s eyes to teach her and the child to never trust or confide in a man who resides in a vulnerable state of mind. Now my love is internally out-lawed and out-lined by gunpowder and noose ties. Now I wander barefoot in rooms of yesterday pestering its wooden planks dragging my fettered feet Hoping my flesh will snag up a splinter from a lynching tree Hoping the pain will convince my ancestral memories to open the lost books of history. Camouflaged in deceit, 67
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we fight in fabricated identities; and no one can tell the Enemy from their inner-me. In this masquerade of blackface and white sheets, we hate who we are and unthread who we see.
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120 Minutes of Sodom by C.F. Molina
time is it? sick again this fucking monkey on my back I got an abcess the last time fuck it, so tired been nodding before it’s a warm feeling heating up the spoon now let’s up the dose a bit stamp bag with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it viscous fluid spoon I forget how everything started, but I know how this ends I know a guy who lost an arm I mean, he didn’t lose the arm, but he passed out on it They put 60 staples in his arm and now it just kind of hangs there All the muscle’s gone He had to talk the doctor out of removing it stupid, but he can pretend that he didn’t lose his arm you pretend that you’re okay then you go get more boy belt around arm; You don’t actually need a belt but I’m trying to help you imagine Anyway, I’m tightening it and flexing, it helps with finding the veins don’t actually remember pushing the plunger what it feels like when you OD: warm warmer WARMEST Pins and needles 69
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you want to cry out for help but you can’t you feel it rise in your throat fuzzy headrush ears ring nothing. don’t remember falling asleep but I’m by myself needle in arm three hours three days la misma vaina feel like I’m drowning right now arms, legs, face all burning nose broken, the sink is red now I want to get up, see my face inspect the damage but, legs don’t work all I can do is moan and groan for someone to help me But no noise comes out arms move needle still there godmyfuckingheadiskillingme hit not finished plunger goes down and then I feel mys—
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The Family Reunion by Hannah Lickey
It happened on a Tuesday in September when the leaves had begun to change to spotted yellows and reds, and the wind carried the smell of damp earth. It was in the late afternoon after the large meal with pies and honey glazed ham and grown-ups that talked too loudly with wine glasses in their hands, that he lead me outside into the cool damp evening air It felt wrong, him taking me so far from the house. to the edge of the property, past the corn fields into a small thicket of woods but still I followed loyally It began as a wave of panic when he gripped my arm and pulled me towards him. Valiantly I fought, resisting at every oppression Kicking, scratching, biting and fighting I drew blood. But so did he. the pain was nothing compared to the compression in my chest his thin adolescent body had the weight of the world on top of me as he dug his dirty fingernails into the Earth and ruined me. It happened quickly, but took so long If I tried to remember, to tell you what happened, It would only come off as a child’s misinterpreted imagination.
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how the West was lost by Lashelle Johnson
my family was Western before West was a word we slept on the ground your Spanish, French, English feet trampled you drained the life from our earth replenishing its lost nutrients with our blood you are not Western you immigrated here the land already ‘colonized’ our wealth became your ruins and now you visit the museum in honor of the slaughter
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YOU MAD?! by Robalū Gibsun
YOU MAD white man’s interstate paved over your greatgreatgrandpappy’s grave, huh? Your African ancestors braved the disease-plagued bowels of a slaveship, for you to die in the bowels of a project you still ain’t human, you property, an object raised on, cartoons and corn syrup, coughing done played outside too long, when Whiteman in black van was plotting your demise pressing the exhaust and the hood is a gas chamber your people caught in as the money falling out your family’s wallet builds more jails to keep your people barred in YOU MAD, reflecting on back when them drug boys robbed that delicatessen, ran back to the block and sold your mama ROBitussin to rock you back to sleep on nights mama kept fussin with your father, ‘cause that nigga was too bitch to be husband, but dog enough to tuck his tail and get married to hustling, YOU MAD at your father, who’d rather raise a gang of drug boys on the corner who sprout up like roses to get chopped by choppers and escorted to the coroner or who slang to suckers like your mother who dropped you off at your aunt and uncle’s so you wouldn’t see her on the corner strung out, struggling YOU MAD at your aunt and uncle, ‘cause the lullabies they sang couldn’t rock you back to sleep on nights gun barrels kept cussin, too loud POW POW POW whole block stop-drop-and rolled to the ground same way fire hoses baptized niggas in the south YOU MAD ‘cause now instead of water, innocent sons and daughters with no armor get sprayed—with bullets and we all know it was a nigga’s finger who pulled it
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and the black boys, doctors forget to diagnose as doomed kids, harden into niggas who listen to AKKK-KKKKKill a nigga music YOU MAD but you too broke down to move quick staring out the window wishing you could scribe a new script but you sit, watching black boys act in the wrong recital spirits shifting from life-loving to homicidal blinded by blood in their eyes that’ll never dry but when a nigga kill a nigga too close to the one in his mirror, a nigga realize the genocide that he prescribed to YOU MAD ‘cause this proves the invisible truth that niggas spend whole lives zoomed in/side the belly of beast that consumes them and when the lifespan of black kids is cut too thin, niggas begin to believe their melanin is a sin and confide in bleached Bibles until brainwashed by slavery’s newest cycle YOU MAD ‘cause it’s FOOLISH, PSYCHO homicidal nigga believe the only way to find God is committing suicide so, he proves it— Next Sunday revival, they pull his body from the pool behind the pulpit BUT WHY YOU SO MAD? Huh? Why you so mad? Our revolution ain’t coming ‘til you cut the bullshit, get up and do shit.
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The Student Media Center, part of the Student Affairs and Enrollment Services division at Virginia Commonwealth University, is a resource center for recognized student media at VCU. Current recognized student media include Poictesme; Amendment; The Commonwealth Times newspaper; Ink, a quarterly magazine; and WVCW radio. For more information, contact VCU Student Media Center, 817 W. Broad St., (804) 828-1058. Mailing address: P.O. Box 842010, Richmond, VA 23284-2010. E-mail: goweatherfor@vcu.edu. Amendment accepts rolling submissions. Please send your name, contact information and submission to amendmentvcu@ gmail.com
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