Quiet Lightning is:

a literary nonprofit with a handful of ongoing projects,

including the flagship literary mixtape, a submission-
based reading series featuring all forms of writing
without introductions or author banter, published as a
series of books called sparkle & blink. This special edition
is an anthology featuring some of the authors who this
year performed in our quarterly showcase of writers of
color, Better Ancestors. Since December 2009 we’ve
presented 1,835 readings by 1,006 authors in 155 shows
and 122 books, selected by 77 different curators and
performed in 98 venues, appearing everywhere from
dive bars and art galleries to state parks and national
landmarks.

Full text and video of all shows can be found for free
online.

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quietlightning.org/subscribe

opportunities + community events

One of Quiet Lightning’s efforts to move toward
racial equity, Better Ancestors is a quarterly showcase
of writers of color. Developed in partnership with
the poet Michael Warr, the series features 5 authors
reading or performing whatever they choose. Each
author selects one performer for the following show,
so the series—and community—is self-generating.
Authors are paid and published in this special edition
of sparkle + blink.

Why Better Ancestors? This showcase aims to

Better Ancestors
provide a long-term, forward-thinking goal. We
are all ancestors of the future, and if we want
a better world we have to be better ancestors.
This begins by listening to one another, and by
giving each other space to be heard.

Read about the authors, watch their performances

and find out about upcoming shows:

quietlightning.org/better-ancestors

Better Ancestors was made possible

with support from California Humanities,
a non-profit partner of the National
calhum.org Endowment for the Humanities.
sparkle + blink 116
© 2023 Quiet Lightning

cover art © Fred Marque Dewitt

freddewitt.com
front cover: Safe Space Suit (resized)
back cover: Morpheus (resized)

set in Absara

Promotional rights only.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

without permission from individual authors.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the

internet or any other means without the permission of the
author(s) is illegal.

Your support is crucial and appreciated.

quietlightning.org
su bmit @ qui e tl i g h tn i n g . o r g
 featured artist
Fred Marque Dewitt | freddewitt.com

devorah major word time 1

Tongo eisen-martin Knees Next to Their Wallets 3
Norman Antonio Zelaya Desesperado: A Story in Prose 9
soledad con carne for the little brown kids that got
called dora becuz of their
bowl cuts 13
how much can I get away with
and still get to heaven 16
Duane Horton The Pink Door 19
james-amutabi connie The Most Infamous Queerdo in
haines the World: Advertising Rituals
for the Future: A Trilogy 27
Griffin Jing The Benevolent Hunter Returns
to Nothing but a Leg 31
ayodele nzinga blackberry pie 33
Briana Grogan vantaBlack 39
[below] 40
urban decay 41
Dazié Grego-Sykes I am 43
Middle-Passaged 44
Moths 47
The Sanctuary 48
Mimi tempestt gender reveal party 51
niggafishing 52
an ode to rihanna 53
Rebecca Samuelson Medical Record Numbers 55
Two in the Morning 56
County Fairs 57
The Price of Desire 58
Jeanne Powell Dressed in Red 59
Gabriel Cortez A Love Poem for Tasha 61
We did everything out of order 63
heard you before I saw you 65
Charles Orgbon III Better Ancestors 71
J Miakoda Taylor The Story of We: Author-izing
the Myths that Saved Our Lives 77
 g is sponsor
et Lightnin ed b
Qu i y
 Quiet Lightning
A 501(c)3, the primary objective and purpose of Quiet
Lightning is to foster a community based on literary
expression and to provide an arena for said expression.

Formed as a nonprofit in July 2011, the ql board is currently:

Evan Karp executive director

Meghan Thornton treasurer
Kelsey Schimmelman secretary
Connie Zheng art director

Anna Allen Kevin Dublin

Lisa Church Christine No
Rhea Dhanbhoora Sophia Passin
Katie Tandy

If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in

helping—on any level—please send us a line:

e v an @ qui et light nin g . o rg

 help us invest in a sustainable
e t hi c a l a r t s ecos ys t em

Support us on Patreon
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t h a n k y o u t o o u r pat r o n s

alex abreu catherine montague

sage curtis james morehead
frederica morgan davis sophia passin
chris dillon jessie scrimager
kevin dublin jon siegel
linette escobar katie tandy
ada genavia
mary gayle thomas
chrissie karp
miles karp meghan thornton
ronny kerr brian waksmunski
charles kruger emily wolahan
jennifer lewis edmund zagorin
shannon may connie zheng
 orah major
dev
word time

how old is your language

he asks and pauses
for answers that will not
come to the tongue

my language of memories
is buried in bone marrow
spilling out in blood
rich with copper, salt
and ancestor breath

my language of touch was

inherited from the first ones
who tasted green, swallowed night
and learned by stroke
and knead to know each other

my language of dance
choreographed on waves
and shuddering meadow grasses
now rests in lamp lit shadows

and my language of speech

is words welded and wielded
round the globe
a language of jazz and goobers

1
 okra and okay opening
the wow of africa
while hindi lies with norse
and german is a bedfellow of latin

a trade language english

smelted by a people committed
to war and domination

my language bends and recreates itself

claims a lineage measured
across light years of knowing
forgetting and learning once
again

2 d ev o r ah majo r
 eisen-mar
ngo tin
To
K nee
s Next to Their Wallets

Fast cash smuggled through my infant torso

I arrived smiling

Coral check-cashing spots seal my eyes

Hearing voices,
but none of them sing to me

I am lucky to be a metaphor for no one

Washing my face with the memory of water

my back to the edge of a chessboard
I mean I’m settling into a petty arrest record
With my face laid flat on an apartment kitchen table

Mississippi linoleum begins

government plants braiding together breathing tubes

A Greek philosopher takes the path of least resistance

The bronze corporation age dawns

Citizen council rest haven

Coachable white nationalism

3
 In board rooms, they ask if county line skin
can be churned directly into cornflakes

A senate’s special chain gang mines

our neighborhood for evidence of continent unity

Makes a mess of the word “kin”

Makes a war report

out of a family’s secret chord progression

Makes white people geniuses

Lynch mob freaks rehearse their show tunes

in the courthouse walls that they take for mirrors
Rehearse for a president’s pat on the head
A pat on the head
that they take for audience laughter

A lot of “sir”s in the soup

A lot of speed

Treaty ink stained teeth

write themselves a grin

Imperialist speech writers’ grins

boil over in my ink-riddled mind

A non-future dripping with real people

I mean, real people…Not poem people

A street with no servants somehow

A soul singer/somehow in the west

4 t o n go e i s e n - mart i n
 Consolation eternity
or
The poor man’s fish order
This half of a half of a spirit
Or husk of a messiah

Religious memorabilia made from

the wood of a prison
farm fence

For sibling domestic colonies

and the not-for-profit
Tuesday meltdowns
We do straightforward time

dehydration takes hold of the police state

every 28 hours
the house dares the slave

doesn’t matter if you name a building Du Bois a

thousand times

What really turns you into a sergeant mention

Turns you into a landslide of sirens

layout sketches passed between deacons

Plot twists provided by white beggars

In a Black city
The fathers who Reagan flicked
Kicking garbage thinking about rates of production
Notebooks dangling out of car windows

t ongo e i se n- ma rt i n 5
 System makes a psychic adjustment

We Go the way of
Now-extinct hand gestures
Mediterranean sandals and
underground moods
in tandem

I mean, whoever I am today is still

your friend

Crooked cops and crooked news junkies

Amadou Diallo is your mind on military science
Mario Woods the gang enhancement they even put
on God

If you turn down the television low enough,

you can hear San Francisco begging for more war
profiteering

We will not live forever, but someone out there

wants us to
As mice pouring through an hour glass
In Olympus, Babylon
Or Babylon, Olympus

subway car smoke session

making its way into an interrogation room
(Maybe it is all just one room.
It’s definitely all just one smoker)
Live from your
monotheistic toy collection
Poor people writing letters
near books about Malcolm X

6 t o n go e i s e n - mart i n
 Ice pick in the art
new floor boards for
Watts prophesy
Pen twitching over scrap paper
Pen tweaking while
Smoothly a bus driver delivers incarcerated children

The Lord’s door opens

t ongo e i se n- ma rt i n 7
 n Antonio Z
r ma el
a
o ya
N D e se s p e r a d o :
A Story in Prose

It was alarming, even worrying, to see someone like

that, arms out to the sides and palms up as he bounced
quick and shuffled like dancing son jarocho but these
were tender steps on the balls of his feet, desesperado,
astray, he was naked down to his underwear, dis-
colored, he was, his back was red and splotchy from
the cold, it was a miserable afternoon, the wind blew
violent at the top of that hill, doing too much, a condo
tower before him and St. Mary’s Cathedral, a cement
monument set behind him, extraviado he was, pobrecito
some said, a pest others cussed, a gust hit his face and his
shock of hair flattened, San Francisco acting up again
but dude braced himself, rapto, éxtasis, he swung his
arms up, held them high, up, palms out, his feet pitter
pattered on the black asphalt, mad, rabioso, a will of
energy, some holy ghost, a holy fandango snatched him,
if he had the embroidered boots of his sonero youth
he’d be in the middle of a furious zapateado, taca taca
taca taca, dude thrust his palms forward, provocador,
his eyes wide and welling up, mánico, his feet worked
like the strumming of a harp, el golfo and jarana and
café con pan in his lungs, in his palms, in his heels,
bliss, beatitud, and San Francisco moaned, he was
in the middle of four lanes of one-way traffic, body
slapped and scraped from a night on the concrete,

9
 dizzy like a top, rapture, encanto, cars squeezed by,
furious. But he was caught, taca taca taca, some holy
ghost, some euforia jarocha, the god damn magic of his
kid days, it had him.
A cruiser arrived, a large SUV, and the officer
yelled, torso halfway out the window, he yelled ruddy-
faced at dude, pointed for him to get on the sidewalk,
waved him over, but he didn’t hear the officer, busy
with oblivion, paraíso, sonero mánico, the officer
screamed redder faced, swung out of his lane and
dammed the cars behind him several rows deep, horns
blared like the tin and lead pipe organ of the cathedral,
choral, loud and clamoring, misery-cordia, dude
pumped his hands along with his zapateado, taca taca
taca taca, beat back the sky and gales and municipal
progress and the columned masses, whose job is it to...,
the officer inched closer to the curb, traffic inched
with him, the strain led to a breach and cars began to
flow, the flow always finds its way, past the ecstatic
zapateado, fandango todos!, San Francisco rolled by
slow then sped and missed dude but not because it
was careful, not because it cared, taca taca taca taca,
he continued forward, hands trembling, shades of
crimson blooming over his skin, dude was steady, led
a moment, derecho. The nose of the cruiser caught up
to him, stayed on his hip, prodded, and dude shuffled
ahead, drifted into the flow and stopped it all, horns
and shouts and anger and bile and rage, defiant, retador,
he stopped it all.
Right at that moment, a man crossing the
street placed a hand on dude’s shoulder and pulled
him, hooked, to the sidewalk, dude tapped on toes,
stumbled, swatted at the foreign hand on his shoulder,
enfadado, lata, he windmilled free but the man, this

10 N o r man An t on io Ze laya
boy scout pursued, harassed dude onto the curb and he,
frustrated, flailed at the boy scout, fought like anyone
would, smacked arms away as the scout reached and
reached for him, desesperado, dude fought back and
struck him, hard, and boy scout, pissed, lunged, bear
hugged the ribs, pinned dude’s arms, he strained,
knocked his head side to side, so boy scout slipped
his arms higher and restrained him, choked him,
dude struggled, his feet pataleando, he struggled like
anyone would, eyes to god, fought to live like anyone
would, easy easy, the boy scout said, quit it, and dude
gasped and clawed the air for life like anyone would. A
passerby came and tapped on the boy scout, fandango,
hey, smacked him frantic, hey, he grabbed and leaned
back, and now they both pulled back on el jarocho,
derelict pietà vagabundo, dude still struggled, euforia,
raised a leg, kept time with a sick smack, let go, the
traffic moved again, flowed, city huffed, desesperado,
feet mottled purple, pataleando still, slow, a beat, a
beat, café con pan, still life, son!, jarocho!, hey, hey, a beat,
scraped the sidewalk, let go, éxtasis, hey, cracked heels
dug in, luchando, like anyone would, dicha, rapto.

N orman Ant oni o Ze laya 11

 da d con car
s ole ne
fo t
caller the little brown kids that gocuts
d dora b l
ecuz of their bow

Bangs cut straight

connect one temple to the other
upside-down bowl spills
a baby galaxy of thought
that grows from the atoms
of the first twinkle twinkle star

A crown of dandelions and pipe cleaners

A super suit made from thrift stores
and hand-me-downs,

Bare feet run over the black top

thru mud puddles
Ring around
ring around
ring around
the dumpster divers
over to the paleta man’s creaking cart
to the book mobile and back

stop at the man who runs

a little market out of his house
buy some pelon pelo ricos
with the dollar from abuelito

13
 celebrate the candy
with a squeal
celebrate a birthday
with a piñata
celebrate a baptism
with familia
celebrate the first day of school
with that first sip of Corona

baby’s first black out

baby’s first bar fight
baby’s first dui
baby’s first cry
out to Creator

please
help me change
please
make it alright
please
don’t let me drink
tonight

pre-k to the school-to-prison-pipeline

pre-k to a 5-10 stint en la pinta
pre-k to court mandated AA
pre-k to stumbling out of liquor stores
anyways

you stumble back

into morning cartoons
and ninja turtle pajamas
you’re rolling down a hill
while I swing up to the moon

14 s o led ad co n ca r n e
we carry potions and create recipes
for eternal youth

where did Time go

as we spin in circles
fall into a kneel
and scrape knees
on sidewalk murals,

wait for Time,

to come kiss your wounds
eat your tears
and assure you,
you don’t gotta know nothing.

s ol e d a d c o n c a r n e 15
 how much can I get away with
and still get to heaven

Galaxies are born from the sweat off my brow

Nebulas are born from the sweat off my lip

star light juxtaposes the darkness of space,

hold each other as yin and yang

I collect stars in a wooden box in my closet

Sunbeams mix with the coins in my pocket
safety pin the fabric of reality together

with a laugh at my effort,

Quetzalcoatl says,
what existence isn’t peculiar?

a Fibonacci number can predict the stripes of the tiger,

so how do you balance the sin from the sinner?

blessings from a heretic

when a good deed is for the man
not the reward,
when a loving hand
is for the collective
not mercy of the soul.

16 s o led ad co n ca r n e
I wonder
about my gluttony and my greed
as I feed from my hoard
of dead poets on dead pages

my sloth, a depressive daze

buried in filth and regretful days,

with lust, is it too much

to have a memory jerk me off?

the envy that shines from a crocodile smile,

the pride behind an alcoholic’s denial,

wrath
at a supremacist system
that guns some kids down,
locks the others in cages.

My soul is not at His mercy

If heaven is a paradise above the stars

then purgatory is the depths of space

Is it so bad to want to exist in a moonbeam

for eternity
if I exist as a constellation
are my sins sketched out in starlight with me?

s ol e d a d c o n c a r n e 17
 Santa Muerte takes me
down interplanetary paths,
guides me through interstellar lands,
sets out a blanket for my place
between Gemini and Lynx,
and kisses me goodbye
on both cheeks.

18 s o led ad co n ca r n e
 ane Horton
Du

T h e P in k D o o r

Galen had walked through many doors in his life.

Some as inane as the door he walked through, stepping
back into his house. Some as big as being paid to
travel abroad to conduct academic research. None
were as big as being a part of the first class of magical
graduates from Magic City University. And walking
through those doors of graduation. The university
itself magicked up in Ashland, Ohio, the first place
where magic was discovered. According to the record
books kept in the University’s library, the exact person
to first use magic was never correctly identified,
though there were many afterwards who would try to
lay claim.

The most known amongst them being a pastor at Mt.

Grace Baptist church. Who claimed it brought him so
close to the divine he could touch them. “You know,
school’s over,” that was Donna Brown, another of his
class of first graduates from university. “No need to
keep your head too far in those books,” she sat down
next to him, handing him a coffee. “Now we’ve got
the whole world at our fingertips,” she beamed. “Any
plans?” and Galen shut the book he had been
reading religiously.

19
“You mean other than paying back the loans I had to
take out to come here?” Galen replied. And Donna
rolled her eyes, as if she had plans for that herself.

“Yeah, other than that,” and Galen sighed out deep.

“Yes,” then he looked over into her eyes. “I’m looking

for the door.”

Galen blinked wildly, dusting off his clothes and

shaking off his nerves as he closed the door behind
him. A pink glow covering him from head to toe in
a halo around his body. “Where did it take you to
this time?” West asked, a tablet in his hand. He had
been scrolling down his news feed, sipping tea on the
couch they shared. As Galen almost doubled over in
laughter. “What?” West asked, setting his tablet down
and moving from the couch.

Galen had found the pink door sometime ago, in fact,

he was the first to make a celestial contract with the
one who governed it. Now, he travelled in and out of
it, free but trapped. “There’s a planet full of feathers,
with feather people, and they laugh and tickle you all
day long.”

“Sounds like a hard day’s work,” West bumped him

with his elbow, returning to his seat; Galen, plopping
down beside him. “I’m glad you had fun,” he smiled
warmly as Galen leaned on his shoulder; exhausted.
“So, any news yet?” West asked, the house they shared,
their own pocket in the universe. Their own planet in

20 Duan e H or t o n
and of itself. Galen shook his head.

“No,” and he lowered his eyes and scratched his head.

Galen turned around so now his head lay on top
of West’s lap. His legs hunched towards his chest.
He wondered how many classes had gone through
Magic City University since he had graduated, fallen
in love, had become the school’s lead professor of
interdimensional travel, since he broke the contract,
and since it hurtled him and West towards unknown
parts of the universe, somehow lost to time.

“Why did I name the door Pink?”

“Because it’s an imaginary and real color.”

“And I am?”

“You are both imaginary and real.”

“No, I am completely real, people just think I’m

imaginary,” Galen remembered the first time he made
the contract with the celestial. And this one was
nothing like the ones he’d read about in his studies.
This one had a casual air that almost felt inappropriate
in comparison to its magnitude of sheer power. But
there it was. Sometimes an eye poking from a giant
space cloud, sometimes a fairy with a dozen dragon fly
wings buzzing by his ear, sometimes a woman dressed
in pink, elegantly sitting on a chair made of pearls
before him. Galen, the first human she’d seen since
creation.

Duane H ort on 21
“I’ve always thought you were real,” Galen said.

“Mhm,” the celestial responded now behind her space

cloud, it’s mouth as wide as a planet, it’s eyes as large
as the sun. “Did you close my door behind you?” Galen
wanted to look behind him but thought it better to be
sure of himself instead.

“I will always close the door behind me.”

“I hope so,” the celestial began. “Because if you don’t,

who knows who could be following behind you. And I
quite like my space to be…undisturbed.”

“I understand.”

“We shall see,” then the celestial threw a golden key in

his direction. “You can use my pink door,” the celestial
said, deciding favor upon him. “However, if you can’t
close the door behind you, then I’ll take back my key,
throw it away, and throw you into a pocket dimension,
okay?”

And so, the contract was made. “But she told you not
to leave the door open behind you?” Donna asked.
It had been over a decade since they had graduated
from university. But they still had made good on their
promise to meet each other on the anniversary of their
graduation. Donna had taken some interest in Galen’s
new contract with the celestial. Some interest in his
bright eyes.

22 Duan e H or t o n
“That was her only rule upon signing the contract,”
Galen replied, taking a bite of his meal.

“Sounds easy enough.”

“It would be,” Galen said, in the middle of a mouth

full. He swallowed and washed it down with a glass
of water. “But you should see the places it takes me,” a
smile began to run on his lips. “I mean, the pink door
lets me travel to worlds beyond imagination. Worlds
where magic was never discovered, it just always
existed, worlds where hunger doesn’t exist, worlds
where everyone was born with a mark underneath
their eye that determines their birth rights. There was
even a world full of bat people,” Galen was beaming.
The check came and Donna waved it away with her
fingertips. She had become a financial wizard; literally.

“Can you take me to one of these worlds?” Donna asked.

And Galen leaned his head to the side. “Mr. Coolest
professor at Magic City University,” she smirked now,
a magic between the two of them began to settle as
it always had. For Donna he would. And his husband
West wouldn’t mind.

“Sure,” Galen said as he straightened up. “We just have

to close the door behind us.”

Galen knew how hard it was to close the door

behind him. On multiple occasions he had almost
forgotten. When a world you step into captures you so
completely upon first entering, with its dazzling colors,

Duane H ort on 23
 unexpected scenes and comparatively outlandish
customs, it was easy to forget. Especially when each
new world he gained access to made him a child. Yet
it was always the eye of the celestial, her tone of voice
ringing in the back of his head before he took another
step, that would bring him back. And make it so that
he would always look behind him, pull on the rose
gold nob, and shut the door tight.

And it would have been the same when Donna

accompanied them, if he had been the last to walk
through the door. Instead of being the first to open it.
But by the time they had made it to the world where
money grew on trees, by the time they had picked their
first dollar from its hefty branches, jumping for joy
and in complete satisfaction, it was too late. Quickly,
Galen grabbed West’s hands, but before he could
grab Donna’s, time stopped around them. “What’s
happening?” West called out as wind seemed to pick
up around them while the rest of the world stood still.
But all Galen could do was look around wildly for the
door.

“Shit,” and Galen gasped as he looked up into the sky,

the celestial’s pink eye narrowed in discontent.

Galen dusted off the pink glow haloing him, patting

his arms and wiping its dust off his legs. “Where did
it take you to this time?” West asked, as he lifted his
body from their couch and went to greet him. Lately,
the pink glow he was dusted in after traveling would
show up in his eyes, and he’d have to blink a few times

24 Duan e H or t o n
before it went away.

“To a world where there were churches on every corner,”

Galen said, leading West back to the couch with him.
This time, West leaned on Galen for support.

“How was it?”

“I prayed,” Galen said, a tear falling down his eye.

“Prayer is good,” West agreed. It was something. It was

something powerful. Just then, Galen was brought all
the way back to his studies, about the pastor at Mt.
Grace Baptist Church who claimed he was the first
to use magic, that it had brought him so close to the
divine he could touch it. He thought to himself that he
hadn’t prayed since first walking through the door and
meeting the celestial.

“Can we pray?” Galen asked. And West nodded his head.

They got on their knees in front of each other and held
hands. When they were done, Galen looked out at the
space beyond their window, ready to travel again soon,
only to be met with a giant mouth, as wide as a planet.

Duane H ort on 25
 es-amut
j a m n i e h a i na b i
con es
The ld:
M ost
Adv Infamous Queerdo in the Wor :
e r ti si n re
g R it u a l s f o r t h e F u t u
A T r il o g y

“There are BLakQueerr People Across Time and Space in this

expansive Multiverse, we dance into the cracks, belt out
prayer songs, throw up mudra attitudes and advertise our
Integrity to the whole celestial strange — whoopee!”

QueerAd*One
Who danced a universe into existence?

In the space and time between the beats of your

rhythmic heart

The one that was once pure ocean

The world embodied as eyes
and lashes for a few days
All mouth
never ending legs
and shapely choices
What a source

27
 QueerAd*Two
When outsiders get equitable treatment
History shows us everyone benefits

Who risked being born sexy and black?

The many with a commitment to blending in

Hiding in plain sight

Like the gorgeous ancestral sky

What a spirit

28 james -amut ab i c on n i e h a i n e s
 QueerAd*Three
Who has always been highly sensitive?

In a world that can be sharp

loud
with so many scents
sounds
moving pieces and people

The one who can enter the room

Quiets it all down
And draws our attention toward them
With such unobstructed clarity

Now they are a sweetness that is neither the first

nor the last encounter
What a sun

jam e s - a m u ta b i c o n n i e h a i n e s 29
 fin Jing
Grif
The rn s
Benevo
lent Hunter Retu
To Noth
ing But A Leg

woman
then, i suppose is the word
if you’re the sort of person who pushes labels, but
i find other ways
to describe it because
the word just makes me want to cry.
my circle was born complete
but the trappings of my poem
are only beginning
to snap. and that’s where we are,
complicated, snared
& bleating out for help. but we don’t visit
poetry to feel these sharp things. we come searching
for starlight that can be held, and frankly,
shoplifted;
in my case, the solar system
wouldn’t fit in my pockets
so i slid it up
my shirt.
i walked out of that store pregnant
with the universe, & my fellow deer
let me tell you what i wish i knew sooner;
that you don’t have to steal. it’s free,
always has been, and i’m giving it to you
because i want you

31
 to have it, because
it costs nothing, because it grows heavenly
like produce sagging in abundance, in aisles
upon aisles of golden arbors leeching
off the bounty of the sun,
because how
dare they charge me
for this?
i’m staying
alive.

32 Griffin Jing
 dele nzinga
ayo
b l a c k b e rr y p i e

(a fractal tale)
for ancestor mathematician John Sims

a countless
number of
praying grannies
have conjured us a world
within a vacuum
their ceaseless prayers
are our gravity
we here
still
we walked most the way
after the chariots
before the loco -motion
we still legion & multiplying
let me count the mathematics
of black in norf merica
way down south
& all out west
in the shadow of dixie
in the breeze of cottons
everlasting breath
where we restless
cuz theres no place to rest
numerous interruptions

33
 countless intersections
the end result of
tidy orchestrations
major movements
micro aggressions
& minor feelings
in play
roll the dice
?whats the odds
history repeats
it can’t be snake eyes
all the time
i need five men to
skin one goat
& 3 virgin sisters
to release 7 doves
all this counts
be careful
what you pick up
or at least remember where
you stole it from
& don’t get greek with me
my orishas speak ebonics
summons me the
ghost of archimedes
speak to me of
levers & other majick
tricks explain me the
foundations of hiram abif
stand in the shadow of
the pyramids
now riddle me this
?did ancient spaceships
sport whistle tips &

34 ay o d ele nzing a
 ?is the truth written
in the vibration of the scream
or the tip of the whip
old cotton got
a multitude of jokes
from 1st to third degree
yes my myth skips
continents
& galaxies
i got a dog star passport
north star motives
& a cosmic mindset
like pi
picture me free
you tried it
but cant contain me
i have been made
an irrational fractal
seeds in blackberries
blackberries in a pie
the more berries
the betta the pie
& formulas like
3 times the average
rent is market rate
all the jobs
minimum
wage
equal you dont
live sit or lay here
look away look away
we had some good times
may they never be forgotten
old cotton talks soft

a y od e l e n z i n g a 35
 dulcet tones hammer in velvet
employing punitive codes
out loud way down
south & all out west
where more mean more
& less mean less
the clock say 10 seconds
to doomsday
swinging on the minute hand
trying to hit a number
that
rearrange the balance
sheet make the music play
different & the end
sum look like a win
they still got
pirates in the temple
30 pieces of silver
buy all your mens
there went grannie’s house
& the neighborhood it’s a
frontier again
we hunter gatherers again
roll them dice
looking for a win
it can’t be snake eyes
all the time
creation will still
exist no matter how
much you leave on the table
turn over your cards
jokers
one planet at
a time silly rabbit

36 ay o d ele nzing a
 ?what were those odds
on repeating history
?colonize
what part of space
bet you the last tree
& fade you my praying grannies
constellations & tree root maps
divided by the number of
shells on the ocean floor
plus all the stars in the sky
are identical numbers
that played backward
make invisible music
you betta be careful
what you conjure
walking
on ancestors eden
bove my head
i cant tell you the star
but godz tears & cosmic
dust is the square root of
all of us
& the more blackberries
the better the pie
& in this I trust
they say god is in the numbers
but the devils in the details
how many notes
compose Coltranes soul
if 400 years ain’t enuff
then how many more
shuffle the cards
im just rifting here
let me double down

a y od e l e n z i n g a 37
 on the hook drop
me some 808s
on the chorus
my myth skips
continents
jumps conversations
& galaxies
more berries please
i got a dog star passport
north star motives
& a cosmic mindset
like pi
im free
you tried it
but cant contain me
i have been made
an irrational fractal
seeds in blackberries
blackberries in a pie
the more berries
the betta the pie

38 ay o d ele nzing a
 ana Grogan
Bri

vantaBlack

for a person perceived firstly as Black, I sure as hell

don’t know a lot of them. play patti, fantasia, or
donna, and I won’t sing along. don’t hand me luster’s
pink unless you expect me only to inhale. and please
put the deck away, you know I can’t play spades.

blame my mom for putting me in girl scouts. my dad

for listening to nothing but npr. but now my mom’s
dead, and my dad’s still in LA, so all fingers point
back to

me and my spotify wrapped. grande, bieber, harlow,

it’s almost like I love white people who wanna be
Black? white people who can’t see anything but my
Black. can’t question my Black. can’t laugh at my
Black. ass

is one thing I do have. be Blacker. be Blackest. be

Black.

39
 [below]

I counted my luck under vinyled ceilings

sage green acrylics caressed by a blunt

our welding happened after 8 pm

on nights not stone-sobered by a genius bar.

I regret not bringing my tiger balm and

not concentrating on the permanence of the pre-existing

you offered me a bite on a bed of white rice and

every time I chose your grandmother’s carpet.

I have ground these herbs before

left peach with no pit

and after proving I am one hit shy of a crack

why wouldn’t you break me?

40 B r i an a G r ogan
 urban decay

holding space for wintered spirits and scotched

tongues is getting old. feet perched cowhide, mouth
filled salt, my skin is the accessory in this room and
every-one I walk into.

ick laced ice, I’m the one who needs you to be soft.
who needs time to untether. who needs no more guilt.
kill me not to frame, but to stain my blood to white
countertop.

molt me new. tan me mine. and if my makeup is

already on your shoulder, what makes you think
Black women won’t come back to haunt you?

Bri ana Grogan 41

 z ié Grego-Syke
Da s

I am
I am tinted nappy hair
I am red hue beneath yellow skin
I am pigeon toes and duck walk
I am a pretty boy in an aging man
I am

I am inhaling inspiration
I am apprehensive but certain
I am tears, wet, and left behind
I said I’d never see 42
Am grateful for the years
I am

I am perpetrating a fraud
I am belonging to my God
I am unapologetic, irreverent, can’t be no shame
I am reinterpreting repurposing recycling, pain
I am

I am free
I am forced to prove I’m free
I am punk-poet and sissy-soliloquy
I am Blackness reinvented
I am all the brown that came before me
43
 Middle-Passaged

Born of cotton wombs

Softly whipped
to coffin
Nappy hair to prune
in hopes to stop the laughin’
Blistered foot is doomed
to walk, another day
Uneducated tongue
careful what you say
Broke shoulders spend your life
Hesitant but look
See not what holds today
but prey for what’s been took
We connect to our ancestors
through the dialect we speak.
We protect our “Broken English”
Our so called poor grammar
Because more important than any language
is the oral history we must keep.
It is swimming between our tongues
and the very roof of our mouths.
It is an accent from Africa, United States
North or South.

We are the children who have no written language

We hieroglyph pilgrims of the ocean

44 Da zi é G r e g o - S y ke s
We Voo Doo Prince
Eyes weeping willows
Green moss and forgotten days of mounting lions
who still know our names.
They pace behind bars in zoos
Not unlike too many young Black brothers
The growls disturb the once sweet dreams
we hear them under covers
Can’t reach for the hand of God
but past the hand of Mothers
Hoard the love that’s in your heart
then look for some from others.
He thrashes his hips against his lover
Refuses to turn over
and become receptive
Believes that death is born
of absorbing
His lover’s own dying seed
Nothing grows.
Wearing skin
like withered leaves
Press your ear to my chest
Hear the mischievous wind
left seeping,
heart keeping,
kisses left by breath
That cannot be perceived
Do not forget
the beloved can always leave.

Da zi é Gre go- S y ke s 45
 Water thrusts spilling blood of pirates
with swords unsheathed
Froth on the shore
Un-drying saliva of African bones and names
that will never be retrieved
I look to her call out “cousin”
scream “uncle”
Cry do you remember me?
Ask was it the vessel, the ocean, or pale skins
that stole you, from me?
No tears travel from the green in my Atlantic
I middle passaged tenderly.

46 Da zi é G r e g o - S y ke s
 Moths

You are giving me moths

Fragile
Wise
Albino.
A Butterfly Held
is a Butterfly Lost
Butterflies do not stay
I stand.
tattered intestine
I kneel.
fluttering wings on my breath
I fall
Sacred woolen heart
protect me
Let me feed him some more.

Da zi é Gre go- S y ke s 47
 The Sanctuary

There is a fly I’ve never met

Licking my arm
Salt
Be it mine
Or Be it misted
by the ocean
I’ve seen her
Turquoise and blue
In some far-off destination
But home
she is grey like me
Here and only here
She is comfortable
She is all of herself
She is sharks
both White and Great
Is concrete hard for those who leap
Some people do jump off bridges
And live
I could be swallowed whole by water or wind.
Once you’re chewed it makes no difference
This Golden Gated destination
is the final one for those who want to be high
even if it lasts just for seconds

48 Da zi é G r e g o - S y ke s
Father Time’s filthy boots
Pressed
and kicking
The horizon and the mind

The ancient waves giggle

Away
Toss centuries old boulder
Until it’s flour fine
Like the flour men
She burns, she browns, she tans
The Black ones play near
Not in
They say we can’t tread water
We say
If what happened before
Happens again
We’ll go much free’er if we can’t swim
We are living monuments
Much too close to the massacre
Our bones are made of the ones who lived
Our skin is heavy and bronzed
We do not sink but run to the ocean floor
To greet our family and friends

You are here frolicking

I am here feeling small

Da zi é Gre go- S y ke s 49
 My mind like water
drifts
like wood
Tightening in my shorts
It’s good to grow

An empty throne
A tomb worshipping pagan
An absent mirror
Seeing without a seer
Into my womb
My virgin sanctuary
Quietly
There I was
Microscopic cosmic shard
On the tongue of a bug
I came to know

50 Da zi é G r e g o - S y ke s
 i tempestt
Mim
gender reveal party

dy
ke poor une
duc
ate
d

whor
e f
at c
unt

s
lut bi
tch

gi
rl
a
fri
can-
ame
ric
an

que
er

ugl
y l
oud bl
ack e
bony ghe
tto ni
gge
r

mi
ssi
ng na
mel
ess

de
ad

51
 * niggafishing
*niggafishing

**previously
previously known
knownas blackface.
as blackface

52 M i mi T e mpe s t t
 an ode to rihanna*
[
bef
ore
]

Mi mi T e mp e st t 53
 [
aft
er]

*
ama
keupt
utor
ial

54 M i mi T e mpe s t t
 be cca Samuelso
Re n
M e d ic
al Record Nu mbe r s

Allow you to be sorted into temporary

aisles think of it as recycling, you never
know when the garbage man is coming
yellow caution covered by red emergency
tape white board on the wall above the
empty wardrobe fall risk scribbled across
in black permanent marker enclosed by
white around every corner momentary
angels until they poke relentlessly left
with purple remnants of missed veins
skin crumpled into shades of grey under
blinding fluorescent lights freezing
between fresh blankets thickness equal
to one ply toilet paper in the shared room
translucent haze concealing open wounds
legs rendered useless hazardous material
lab coats relaying timeframes predictions
when infections will finally concede
pills with names no one knows how to spell
dispersed every four hours since pain only
works in grocery store part time shifts
ice water in pink plastic pitchers scan
the barcode like you’re a box of honey
nut cheerios wonder who’s in charge of
price checks how many bags did you use
paper or plastic no one wants to deal with
the lemons about to expire
55
 Two in the Morning

Avoidance is a ghost that lurks

in the swinging mirror of the
medicine cabinet coated in
toothpaste stains & streaks

how many plastic pill contain

errs does it take to finally manifest
a spirit of courage greater than
any movie lion depiction

did you know that when liquid

gels burst inside the old Ziploc
bag in your purse it renders your
entire being ineffective

bones will be coated in the dust

of crushed multicolored tums
that were kept on hand just in case
adulthood laced that cheeseburger

maybe the headache is to detract

from the blinding light of the moon
bouncing off cotton sheets from
another sleepless night

56 R e b e c c a S a mue lson
 County Fairs

My nightmare is being surrounded by boxes filled

with stuffed carnival cows. Those cows that almost
look like pigs but also always seem to have the same
manufacturing tag. Somehow, they’ll crawl out of
cardboard teaming up with velvet roses & one-eyed
teddy bears. Ultimate demise met on a Thursday
afternoon when I am overcome by cotton balls and
multicolored lint. Overpriced trinkets won in order
to satisfy the attendant shouting at our passing
bodies. Cmon man don’t you want to win her one Why
are you so afraid to shoot water into a clown’s mouth If
you play now, I’ll give you five extra rings to toss.

Re be cca S a mu e lson 57
 The Price of Desire

craving deafening silence never

made much sense praying for
this house to be a ghost town
an opportunity to get work
done outside of flat screen
televisions blaring down the hall
distant sitcom laugh tracks
sometimes baseball announcers
seemed like endless fuel
unknown currency exchanged for
this wish without your voice you
left to be plunged into deep earth
beyond earth worms peeking heads
at the stem of garden weeds
swirling with freshly made mud
requests fallen on dead ears
shoveling through images
does memory transcend layers?
below the soil beyond the bedrock
is your new address maybe you
gained a third eye some extra limbs
now my voice emanates above your
engraved letters in stone scrubbed
clean on Sunday afternoons

58 R e b e c c a S a mue lson
 nne Powell
Jea

D r e ss e d i n R e d
© 2023 Jeanne Powell

one version of “Dorothy in the Mansion” © Sheldon Greenberg

you, brave belle with the saucy hair

curls entwining blood red ribbons
invincible in that dress

wearing those Dorothy heels

clicked together but walking
a long mile on stairs

full of carpet that never shielded

you from the hard steps
you had to climb

staring down the past

you put on the red dress
reserved for warrior women

gloried in its fiery color

whose blood consecrated that staircase
winding down, closing down

all doubt and division

losses balanced out
this life was yours to keep

you, battle strong with the saucy hair

armed with ribbons of valor
triumphant at last. 59
 briel Cortez
Ga
A Love
Poem for Tasha

Should involve a gallery

of baked delicacies
posing in the window,
a drag race of sugar,
parades floating on cream.
Tasha would wait outside, a litany
of quips fluttering across the tarmac
like the judges she watches on TV
as she decides
whether to walk or lip sync for her life.
And by lip sync, I mean
teeth cleaving a song
through the risen dough,
sweet partitioned into bites small enough to savor.
Oh little mouthed queen! Unpainted diva!
I want to ornate you in shiny things,
turn on the cameras
in our dressing room
sized apartment
and make you feel as big as you deserve.
Your dream journal, a confessional
for the girls to lean in and gossip
about what this morning’s non-linear narrative
told you this time.
Your sunscreen, infused with glitter.
At the end of each season, everyone you love

61
is invited to pull off a look in your honor:
• The aunty cooing over Facetime
• The 16 hour day conducted from bed
• The ousting your anti-Black executive director
And you get to decide
who wore it best,
and though they try,
they never look half as good as you.

62 G ab r i e l Cor t e z
 We did everything out of
order

Our first wedding was in 2011. 1 decade before she

knelt on that beach and poemed us betrothed. A full
phd’s tenure before same sex marriage is legalized in
the United States. Only twenty years after the final
law against interracial marriage is struck down. I was
20 and you were 19 and we danced and flirted beneath
a rainbow colored sky, while our homies kissed and
said their vows despite a country that still declared
their love criminal.

In 2013, we moved in with nobody’s permission but

our own. What heathens, in our studio apartment,
making church of the kitchen floor, where siblings and
friends made their beds and spoke story until sunrise.
Where we squeezed our knees and elbows into a
shower stall built for one. Where singing lessons made
the bedroom Zoom call a form of praise and worship
and online therapy baptized the kitchen into a vow of
silence. If you asked my mama, she’d call it living in
sin. If you asked my mama, she would tell you how she
almost took the ring off her own finger to officiate
this union herself.

Gabri e l Cort e z 63
Tasha proposed with a gold wedding band on the
beach of our ten year anniversary. So what do we
exchange here? If not a small, untarnished star as if to
say, “I hope to orbit you even when the sun refuses to
rise?” If not a seafoam dress and a kelp green suit to
remember us when all the oceans’ dry to dust?

How do we learn to begin at the end? The same way

weddings howl drunk at the heels of funerals. There
are people that should be here that are not here. But
that doesn’t mean they didn’t walk us down the aisle,
throw rice behind us after every family dinner. They
gave us away long ago. Alive in our smiles, they are
speaking at our wedding right now.

We did everything out of order. And praise us for it.

This home we made, these children we raised, this life
we walked through backwards. 33 going on 12 going
on day 1. How our days grow longer and less filled
with smoke.

64 G ab r i e l Cor t e z
 I heard you before I saw you
A group poem by Gabriel Cortez and Natasha Huey, with words
spoken by Natasha on the left, words spoken by Gabriel on the
right, and words spoken together italicized in the middle.

I heard you before I saw you.

Your voice proclaiming
your sibling’s brilliance
across the MCC.
Your voice, the first part of you
to touch me.

Our story started

on our freshman year
poetry slam team, where you stood
smallest amongst us
like an anchor, every muscle
in your body, immovable.
Tasha lays the hammer down,
Tasha makes it hard to follow.

Our story started

in my dorm room,
CalSLAM organizing turned
homework session turned
5AM talks moonstruck
through the window.

Gabri e l Cort e z 65
 It started on a run
that went way too long.
After 7 miles, 6 friends
dwindled to 2, you and me.

It started on 61st and Telegraph

on a rainy night
that engulfed in flame.

No no before that.
What was the first portal
you walked through
to find me?
How many doorways did it take
to bridge our two worlds into one?

It started with Amalia playing

horsey caballo draped,
with Claudia’s gold,

with Matt steering a sailboat

in 10 foot ink blue swells,

and Grompa crying on the back of

that ship as he waved his only
home goodbye.

It was the wind

behind their backs, connecting
Colon Panama, to Brooklyn,
Ukraine to Buffalo
to Los Angeles California.

66 G ab r i e l Cor t e z
 It started with Michael
and a camera and a dream,

with Susan and her relentless pen

plucking my name
from a book at 17.

It started with a tree

outside St. John’s,
with a mother rose
in Aberdeen soil,
with an elephant’s step,
a sweet plantain slice
and a rhyme too good not to share.

What if we had gotten lost

along the way?
Me, somewhere in the woods
of Maryland, entranced
by the cicada song
of elementary school best friends.
You, in Southern California,
choosing a school
that was closer to home.

What butterfly fluttered

us toward each other?
how many near misses,
wrong turns,
sweet loves,
and quiet dreams
led us here?

Gabri e l Cort e z 67
 How many airplanes,
6 hour drives, prayers?
How many lightning bolts, meteors,
fevers,
and drivers asleep at the wheel
almost kept us from learning
each other’s name?

What if our parents never shot

their shot on that military base,
in that grocery store?

What if they never snuck out of

their parent’s house, love
only visible by moonlight?

What if this world didn’t decide

to keep you, then keep you,
then keep you again?

Did it sound
like your father’s voice?

Did our portal look like a stage?

And when it was finally your turn

to walk, did you follow it ear first?
20 years old listening to the loud
heartbeat beating in your chest that
said green light go,
arm over shoulder, plastic bottle
spin landing on your best friend,
your co-director,
the best person you know.

68 G ab r i e l Cor t e z
 Did you hear wedding bells?
Did you hear, “I do?”
It’s true, I heard you
before I saw you.

I heard you
I heard you

I heard you
I walked through

Gabri e l Cort e z 69
 Orgbo
a rles n I
Ch II
B e tt e r A n c est o r s

Living life as a writer—no, actually a memoirist—

means that everyday moments become more than just
an everyday moment. Eating oatmeal at my Oakland
apartment brings back a memory of how Grandma
Dorothy taught me that the porridge along the edges
of the bowl were the least hot. “Eat that first,” she
advised. Does that belong in the memoir?

There are other comforting memories. Like how

drinking sweet tea reminds me of Grandma Gloria
scooping handfuls of sugar into plastic pitchers. Cut
lemons floated like lilly pads on top, and when the tea
was all gone, I loved gnawing at their sweet and tart
rinds. Does that belong in the memoir?

Or then there’s the numerous times I wanted to cry

but couldn’t. Sometimes it was easier to bleed than it
was to cry. And sometimes I wished it was someone
else’s blood. Do all of these moments belong in the
memoir?

One minute you’re a grown-ass 401k-contributing,

dental-insured man, and then the snap of a cheesy
baked cracker in your watered mouth conjures a
trip to the corner convenience store and stomps
open a hidden door, ushering an uncanny detail

71
 about the night Grandpa Charles molested you.That
definitely belongs in the memoir, but only after I can
strangle the nightmares.

And what about the details? I don’t remember

everything precisely. Details such as if the family
court clerk gave me a peppermint before or after the
social workers in the room left remain a mystery to
me. I only remember accepting a peppermint. Maybe
my mom wasn’t wearing a brown Old Navy cardigan
when she was packing our bags because we were
leaving Grandma Dorothy’s house for good, but she
certainly owned this garment and wore it frequently.

And do I still refuse to sleep naked as an adult because

of what Grandpa Charles did to me as I was falling
asleep? I don’t know for sure, so I didn’t include that
detail, but I do want you to know that I think about
this. I have examined these ideas with a surgeon’s
precision.

These are the stories I have to lean into to build the

memoir that exists today. I’m like a miner in a dark
cave, trying to collect worthwhile items to bring
back to the surface. Only upon bringing them into a
wedge of light do I realize that the work isn’t done.
More polishing is needed. And if I am not careful, I
might get cancer—not Black Lung Disease, but rather
a cancer of the soul.

The more I explore, the more I realize I’m unlocking

countless stories that each take me on a nostalgic
journey, popping up like dandelions.

72 Ch a r l e s O r g b o n III
I started this journey so naively, thinking it wouldn’t
take as much as it actually did. The first-ever skeleton
of my memoir was formed from my college essays
when I was 17 years old. Applying to Harvard and The
University of Pennsylvania for admission, I quickly
began to think that 750 characters were insufficient
to articulate my personal statement. I could compose a
memoir from these scripts by combining a surprisingly
unremarkable number of letters and spaces, I thought.

Each year a human life consists of millions of words,

so naturally, whether you’re twelve, twenty, or
approaching your twilight hours, you, too, have
sufficient content for a 60,000-word memoir, right?

If lives were as simple as word counts, then memoirs

would be a piece of cake. But I wanted meaning. I
wanted depth. That took performing an exorcism over
my memories. That was laborious work, leaving me
exhausted and torn over.

And then I wondered if I did all this work, would

people even understand it. Sure some people will be so
oblivious that they’ll think LGBTQ+ is some new TV
streaming service. And yes, Florida and 16 other states
will ban it, but I mean the people who actually want to
seek out stories like my own. Will they get it?

I mentioned having dogs growing up in my memoir,

but I didn’t mention much. There’s meaning in the
exclusion alone. A whole discussion on how white
people and Black people have different relationships
to pets can be explored there. If I actually talked about
that, though, it would bring readers out of the story,

Ch a rle s O rg bon III 73

 out of the feelings of what was going on. The scene’s
focus would feel less immediate.

If you really sit with the text of my memoir, you’ll

realize that it’s sort of like those space-saving vacuum
plastic bags. You put some air into them and then they
expand back to life and you realize how much space
was really there to begin with.

Oh so many times I wanted to give up and write a

god damn angry Facebook post. And just call it a day.
Unlike a Facebook post, which can be thought of in
minutes and shared to thousands in seconds, a book
goes through several, what feels like endless, revisions
and can wait in an indeterminate state for years.

I was pounding the pavement for seven years before I

even got a glimmer of attention from the mainstream
publishing industry on my story. It was when George
Floyd was murdered that folks wanted to see my
manuscript. It literally took an innocent Black man,
being restrained unashamedly in front of an audience
like a circus on video for me to find momentum in
my writing career. George Floyd had to be suffocated
by a white man for 9 minutes and 29 seconds before
white-led children’s book publishing decided it
was time that we needed more Black, queer stories
published.

One white gay agent, the father of a Black child even,

quickly declined my request for representation, “I
already have published one Black, queer young adult
memoir. I mean unless they are wildly different.” His
words didn’t even trip out of his mouth. That’s racism.

74 Ch a r l e s O r g b o n III
My memoir as it exists today ends when I am 18-
years-old. I’m now 27-years-old. It’s a blessing to have
lived beyond that, and the long fought-for epithet
of memoirist won’t easily be put down. It still lives
within me. This is my first book, and there are many
more inside of me, ready to vie for their solo debut.

Ch a rle s O rg bon III 75

 iak o da Tay l o
J M r
The
Story o
f W e : A u t h o r - izing
the ives
Myths th
at S av e d O u r L

Note: This piece is an excerpt from a much longer body of work that
is currently being shaped into a blog and book. To stay informed
about the evolution of this work, as well as our other projects,
please visit JmiakodaTaylor.com

Children, family, kin, gather round. I have a story to tell.

This is the story, or one version of the story, of

my coming of age, of my coming into the age of a
burgeoning elder and storyteller.

This story is definitely not HIStory. One might think of

it as my story, though it has been shaped and informed
by far too many life forms and belief systems for me
to stake such a claim. Besides, it would bring my heart
the utmost joy if you ended up relating to it, or at least
to some aspect of it, as your story. As such, and with
the aspiration of ever weaving ourselves into a more
intimate whole, I humbly call it OUR story.

* * *

Before we begin, it feels important to disclose that

I don’t believe that this story is the “truth.” Nor are
any of the other stories we hear or tell, including

77
 the ones reported in the news or in academic and
scientific journals. That is not to say that this story, or
those stories, are lies. It is simply my way of stating
that I don’t believe a solitary and definitive truth exists.

Christianity’s dominance of the western world

teaches us to believe that life solely expresses itself in
dichotomies of right or wrong, good or bad, truth or
fiction. This practice of severing the world into twos
is in and of itself a story, and in my humble opinion,
one that is deeply harmful. I personally cannot think
of anything two-dimensional that is alive. Can you?

The dominance of this two-dimensional, either/or

story literally kills off the possibility of a yes-and. I
believe many of us are deeply yearning for a dominant
culture of yes-and possibilities. One that invites us
into a contemplative engagement with truth and each
other, similar to that which emerges from questions
like, “when a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one
around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

* * *

I trust that all schools of science, news, academics, and

even religion would agree that all the stories we think
of as the truth simply began as something someone
believed. They were shared because the believer
felt the story was important for others to consider.
Others then believed, validated, and retold these
stories because they struck resonant chords of safety,
inspiration, belonging, or power.

So, while I don’t believe anything I am sharing here

78 J M i a k o da Tay l o r
is the truth, I know it is a myth that inspires my own
feelings of safety, belonging, and power. It does so by
re-membering my dignity to the dignity of all of life.
It is also the myth through which I re-claimed the
authority to author my own narrative.

This myth begins back in the fall of 2010 when I found

myself at the gates of San Quentin Prison on a stormy
Thursday morning.

* * *

As I exited the high speeds of the San Rafael-Richmond

bridge, and entered the quiet, unincorporated village of
San Quentin, population of 100, I remember thinking
this sleepy coastal village, with the bay lapping at its
shore, seemed like an idyllic refuge from the urban
realities of the Ohlone, Bay Area.

Stepping out of my car into the prison’s parking lot,

wind and rain slapped me from every direction. Nature’s
raw expression sobered me into remembrance that
this seemingly innocent town is home to California’s
oldest prison, the state’s only death row for male
inmates, and the largest death row in the United States.
The weather felt like an appropriate initiation to this
land and for the conversations awaiting me on the
other side of the prison gates.

But before I describe what I found through those gates,

I want to go back even further, to 2007, when I found
myself in the midst of the worst health crisis of my life.

* * *

J Mi a ko d a Tay lor 79
I hadn’t slept soundly for months. I was riddled with
anxiety. The experience of engaging with the world felt
like walking through a house of flames. I overreacted
to everything. My social skills were atrocious. I was
experiencing an emotional breakdown, and there was
no obvious reason why.

When I went to the doctor, I was diagnosed with

severe anemia, adrenal depletion and depression,
hyperthyroidism, and the equivalent of a 6-month
pregnancy-worth of tumors in my uterus. The doctors
recommended we medicate and operate, though they
couldn’t explain the source of my dis-ease, nor provide
any reasonable expectation that the treatments
prescribed would prevent the symptoms from coming
back.

The lack of explanation or cure left me terrified, and

seriously contemplating if escaping my life for good
was the most dignified path forward.

Thankfully suicidal ideation turned out to be a non-

starter, since I’m not into violence, pain, or prescription
medication. Instead, it invited me to get more curious
about the sources of my suffering. I started wondering:
if I can’t find a way out of my body, perhaps I should
figure out how to get more fully into it, and into
relationship with the events and circumstances I am
most afraid of.

At that time, I was most afraid of the tumors.

* * *

80 J M i a k o da Tay l o r
I started a daily meditation practice of lovingly placing
my hands on the bulbous growths in my belly and
asking them, “What are you here to teach me?” With
time, they re-membered me to the fact that: I had
been raped multiple times as a teenager, by people
I knew and trusted, and had processed the resulting
pregnancies like I was getting my car repaired.

Hmmm.

This got me thinking about a lot of things, including

something a therapist once said: “Betrayal is often
one of the most powerful gateways to enlightenment.”
When she first shared this idea with me I thought I was
being directed to look at the places in my life where
I had been betrayed by others. This tumor guidance
made me realize that those events were actually
gateways for me to recognize the places where I had
betrayed myself.

One of the most significant ways I had betrayed myself

was in not claiming my story.

* * *

For the better part of the last 20 years I walked around

acting like being raped was normal, expected, no big
deal. I was simultaneously terrified to tell anyone,
fearing people would blame me, say I deserved it, call
me a slut, not believe me.

As I stood at the precipice between life and death, I

realized my lifeline was dependent on my ability to
look people in the eye and say with dignity, “I was

J Mi a ko d a Tay lor 81
 raped. I was forced to have sex against my will. It was
not my choice. It was not my fault. I did not deserve it.”

Soon after I began sharing my story with friends and

colleagues, I was invited to participate in the San
Quentin Prison Victim Offender Education Group,
a Restorative Justice initiative where violent crime
survivors share their stories with the “lifers’’ in the
program. This offers both groups the opportunity to
serve as surrogates to the healing and rehabilitation of
the other. A few weeks after receiving this invitation, I
found myself at the gates of San Quentin on that rainy
Thursday morning.

* * *

Prior to arrival, I made a promise to myself to not give

these men the power to validate or invalidate my story.
Then, as I walked through multiple security gates, each
reverberating buzzer and slam moistened my armpits
and hands, slicking my grip on this commitment.

I was escorted into the “garden chapel” where gently

hued light shone through panels of stained glass. Eight
inmates shifted wooden pews and unstacked chairs,
placing them in a meticulous circle. The sanctity of
the space, as well as the humble pride of these men
welcoming a special guest into their home, deepened
my breath.

Then, other men began filing into the room, and the
reality of sharing the most difficult experiences of
my life with a group of 40 men serving life sentences
kicked in. My breath halted. I wanted to cry. I wanted

82 J M i a k o da Tay l o r
to leave. Yet I felt far too entangled by the commitment
to do either.

* * *

As the facilitator rang the initiatory bell, the intrinsic

practice of gathering in circle began working its magic.
After some context and ground rules were established,
we were each invited to check in with the group by
responding to the question: “How are you doing
physically, emotionally, and spiritually?”. One by one,
each man vulnerably shared, exposing heroic efforts to
find peace and divine order within their circumstances.

I felt my belly soften and my breath deepen once again.

My fear and disorientation began to dissipate.

Once the check-ins were complete, I began to share

my story...

J Mi a ko d a Tay lor 83
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