***Featured Artist*** Siaara Freeman
Joy Lane is Not Dead
“Cleveland police said Stephens shot and killed Robert Godwin, Sr., the 74-year-old victim picked by Stephens at random. In one of the videos, Stephens approaches Godwin, Sr. on the street, and makes the victim say the woman’s name “Joy Lane” before fatally shooting him. During a separate video, Stephens said, “She’s the reason why I’m making this video. She is the reason what’s about to happen today.”
& some people are mad at Joy
for being
alive.
They be like:
how dare Joy
survive when
so much else did not?
& Joy is not safe in Cleveland
& Joy is not alone
They be like:
Joy left that boy
& he went crazy
Joy was supposed to be his
said it out his own mouth
it was all Joy
fault all that blood
that poor spilled
stranger.
& some people wanna know where Joy is
hiding & some people say
the cops got Joy where
can’t nobody get Joy.
They be like:
Joy did something terrible
Joy must be some kind of hell
cat. Joy probably used him & went
to his homeboy or some shit. Joy
aint loyal enough
to niggas.
& some people say Joy just a woman
& what you expect from Joy
But guilt to follow?
They be like:
Joy ruined dude
whole life. Caused him to kill
the old man & him
self
Women be the root
of all evil. Witches who rot
a man into sin on any given
Sunday
Eve.
My Mother Is An Enchanted Portrait
(from Delphi Riddle To Bellatrix Black While in Azkababan)
If I stare at you long enough you start to move, there is more
magic in this than I let on. I do not cry at you or on you instead
I dribble water to your face and make you do it for me, you are
my mother after all. Crying does make you look more
demented but what more could be expected of you? Walking away
from the light just to run into it ? If my father split his soul 7 times
gave you a piece to hide, who did it hurt more? Did you not die
in his war, in his name, did you not pull me out, fierce as a wand?
your last shred of magic? the spell more want than love. I am called
a curse, but a curse is sometimes a gift opened the wrong way. Our
history is a worm feasted knowledge. Decay is a teacher best given
to the student who knows life to well, who dined daily with the evil
and did not choke. Doesn’t matter If I am the kettle or the pot I am
a Black, they say I am his child, and I am but I am more you
mother, a gust of steam scalding whatever is not the same broiling
urgency, lullaby sung to a wretched sea the sure sound of pain, loyal
like an obedient hatred. I sit here in the same prison
cell that was yours. The cell we share is big, sufficient in relinquishing
I say we, because I imagine you here with me, I don’t daydream us
into who we are not or into places we will never go. I don’t pretend you
into apologizing
for the life you choose or for the ones you choose to take
I don’t. I think of us here, sirens, told we are too dangerous for the sea
too dangerous for the very thing that us brought us here. Some men
love the sea, other men despise it, but no man can really call it
theirs
alone. I think of us humming and the men become bloodless. I hear this
and rub cobwebs across my face until I feel
fingers. Soon as I feel fingers I begin
to bite. Soon as I begin to bite, my fear climbs
out of my chest and into your eyes. They call you
crazy, they say you can tell by your eyes. How
they scream without you. The only part of your picture
that does not move. The only part trying to keep me
still.
Siaara Freeman is a friendly neighborhood hope dealer. She writes poems & performs them & publishes them. She has been published in the literary journals Elementz Review, Chicago Lit Review, TinderBox, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Texas Borderland Review, Rats’ Ass Review, and Freeze Ray. She’s been on helly slam squads and even has coached a few. She’s a BRAVE NEW VOICES ALUMNI and a coach of the 2017 Detroit Youth Poetry Slam Team.
She has made list of poets & tweeters & thrifters to watch! & has been interviewed by For Harriet on poetry as self care. She was nominated by Up The Staircase Quarterly for Best New Poet 2016. She tries to feed people, including herself off this alone. She is a Slytherin & the current Lake Erie Siren. She is a Connoisseur of Clap-back & Guilty Pleasures. I heard, she is growing her Afro so tall God mistakes it for a mic & speaks into her.
She is the Founder of Wusgood.black.