Kern Carter's Blog, page 83
October 29, 2021
Universe, Do Your Worst
Photo by Ernesto D. via ReshotThe workers come. They drill into the concrete in front of my building. I hear them cut through the ground. A drill here, some digging there. They disturb the dog.
She wakes up from a sound sleep, eager to locate the demons responsible for the momentary interruption.
As they carve into the ground below us, I think about you. Are you entertained? Did I make a good first impression? Was I too much — too little? Is my personality what you thought it’d be?
I didn’t have to think about things like this two years ago. The pandemic has me this way. I tell my therapist I am forever changed. She agrees. She says I’m not the only one. I know I’m not.
Universe, do your worst. I promise I can take it. It’s a statement I thought should be on a t-shirt. I’m still here. After all the damage — all the calculated drama — all the premeditated bullshit, I’m still here.
You speak of wanting children — a life with someone who holds his crotch every thirty minutes. I know this isn’t me. I feign not hearing you. I change the subject. We talk about beating the odds as black women, instead.
The workers tag the concrete. A yellow sign issues caution. The newness of their act intrigues me. A small leaf pokes through the wet-work. What does it mean?
The dog falls back to sleep.
©2021 Tremaine L. Loadholt
[image error]Universe, Do Your Worst was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Life Is Beautiful
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on UnsplashI see beauty in the
Alliterations of love and laughter
Light and life:
In the mayhem and madness wrought in my mind
By the mystery of moonlight and starblaze
Sunrises seamlessly blending into sunsets,
Dawns into dusks.
Thirty-two teeth and a pair of lips that create
The mystic beauty of a smile
…and words:
Incandescent
Effervescent
Free flowing
Heart stopping
Wave cresting
Mind bending
Earth shattering
Ecstasy inducing
Heart rending…
And the beauty and magic in the before and after,
Of rising in love.
A response to the timely and thoughtful prompt by the CRY publication, ‘What Makes Life Beautiful
The power of the present, in another form: shoutout to Ravyne Hawke for her crisply lucid poem about Now.
[image error]Life Is Beautiful was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
when you (don’t) want me
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplashwhen you want me
you want me
your eyes get that look
your touch lingers
you hold onto me
i can’t pull away
you hunt me
i am prey
when you don’t want me
you don’t want me
your eyes are blank
your touch is absent
you turn away from me
i can’t press in
you shun me
i am sin
when you want me
you want me
you seek me out
you pounce upon me
i fall beneath your ferocity
i can’t fight back
you devour me
i am your snack
when you don’t want me
you don’t want me
you hide so well
i still find you
you are in a shell
my touch it burns you
you shy away
my heart does too
when you want me
you want me
i must not refuse
you whittle away my resistance
with your feminine wiles
my love is a constant
you wield against me
i am your servant
when you don’t want me
you don’t want me
i dare not request
persistence is futile
under threat of duress
my advances cannot be
your resistance is complete
i am enemy
when you want me
you want me
you find me wherever i am
bite into my sensitivity
nothing stops you
i cannot run
you absorb me
i am undone
when you don’t want me
you don’t want me
you get lost
become someone else
hide in excuses
i flee instead
you don’t follow
i am unwanted
© Ryan J. Pearce 2021
[image error]when you (don’t) want me was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Their Black Skin Baby Girl
New story on Love & Literature
Since I can remember, I’ve been my parents’ favorite subject; a little black skin baby girl, their first child, the one you are eager to frame in time by the second you get to hold. Over the years, parents would record films and pile boxes and boxes of old tapes and cassettes in dusty places. Those memories become an anchor for rainy days, a reminder for the future-being their child was going to be. Like the pictures you’ll look at, they pin a past that had relentlessly faded away. If you look at them, look at them closely, or you’ll never understand.
That’s the beginning of the first chapter of Alessia Petrolito’s story titled An Italian Diary. Alessia was adopted into her Italian family as a young child. In this first chapter, she describes life as a Black child living in Italy—her schoolyard friendships, her home life, and how others perceived her place in her family in contradiction to how she perceived herself.
To say Alessia’s writing is beautiful would be an understatement. She writes poetic prose and escorts you into her mind and reality in a way that places you right there beside her.
The first chapter is titled Their Black Skin Baby Girl. Read it now and subscribe to Love & Literature to read all four chapters, which will be released on consecutive Sundays.
[image error]Their Black Skin Baby Girl was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
