We Are All So Good at Smiling

by Amber McBride

So when I think of autumn, I think of somebody with hands who does not want me to die. —TONI MORRISON, The Bluest Eye

Hoodoo is real, witches & Fae people too. Fairy Tales are real, magic is real, but, careful, Whimsy, sometimes your own mind will unroot you.

I shake my head thinking, We are all so good at smiling— like we invented it.

a brain is still a brain with or without serotonin—but we think too much. We need to remember that

My point is that a leaf knows it’s important, at all moments of its life even when it is broken. People always forget that a rough day, a bad year— doesn’t equal a bad life.

Trying to melt the bad memories, (in her way) trying to manage sadness & dissolve it like sugar in water.

No one ever tells you that Sorrow doesn’t grab you by the throat.

It opens the door, offers a warm fire, says—Have some candy.

Sorrow tugs me closer, its hands laced with maggots & so cold they feel as hot as the center of a flame.

This time the Garden is darker, older, wittier than when we entered it 10 years ago— & living has beaten us both raw. We enter through the archway together (again).

My grandma used to say, Most things die waiting for something but in Hoodoo we don’t wait we create.

Men & boys are very disappointing.

Clock it!

I step out of the house my magic built curls dancing with magic, barefoot, my backpack filled with herbs & my hands filled with magic.

could never leave you alone in this sorrow, Whimsy. Sorrow waits, heels on its wooden table next to a vase of honeysuckles.

I look at the marks on Faerry as thin as razor-blade edges. Oh, Faerry. I used to think that is where the pain got out. Faerry coughs. I don’t think that anymore.

Sorrow has an ancient voice, like cicadas & sugar.

Faerry is (still) the saddest sun, I am (still) the sorrowful moon.

I open my mouth to speak, but the violence chokes me—the water chokes me. They keep holding me under, throwing hate so hard it punches me through—bruises my brown skin. They call me Medusa & eel hair & Blackie & they spit on me.

I remember the coins in my pocket & manage to pull one out. I drop it (an offering) into the water saying— Ancestors, Please. Help me.

Be the story, child. Be your history.

Do you understand now (reader)? There is someone out there rooting for you. You are not alone, in any Forest. You there, hello, bonjour, hola— we are rooting, cheering for you to live & thrive.

Adze: A creature from Ewe folklore. It presents in the form of a firefly & will turn into a human being when captured. Adzes are essentially shape-shifting vampires. They can also possess people & turn them into witches. Anansi: The West African trickster god who takes the form of a spider. There

Hoodoo/Conjure/Rootwork: An African American magic system that arose in the Americas after enslaved Africans were stolen from their homelands & stripped of their way of life. Hoodoo & its many practices are as unique as the regions they took root in, but the pillars of Hoodoo include: the elevation of ancestors; knowledge of & working with herbs, roots, candles, sticks & bones; oneness with nature; & balance.