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Unity 3:170:00/3:17
WINTER 2/22/22 EDITION
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bringin ink to a gunfight
by Edythe Rodriguez
Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based poet who studied Africology and creative writing at Temple University. She loves neo-soul, battle rap, and long walks through old poetry journals. She has received fellowships from The Watering Hole, Brooklyn Poets, and Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Her work is a call for aggressive healing and is published in Obsidian, Sonku Literary Magazine, Call and Response Journal and Bayou Magazine.
Surgically Enhanced Mannequins (1-13)
by Julián Esteban Torres López
The poetry included in the multimedia piece “Surgically Enhanced Mannequins (1-13)” is an excerpt from Julián Esteban Torres López’s micro-poetry collection Ninety-Two Surgically Enhanced Mannequins. The audio track of the multimedia piece “Surgically Enhanced Mannequins (1-13),” which includes the poetry performance and the soundscape, is included in Julián’s audio storytelling album Sfumato. Artificial Intelligence created the artwork and Julián designed the soundscape and poems, which tackle the absurdity of what it means to be human and honor how moments, not plots, compose our lives. The piece is an attempt to capture these fleeting moments, while also trying to remember the intensity of the mundane and the abyss of the beautiful. It also directly confronts colonial forms of storytelling, so Julián designed the environment as a form of resistance. He wanted to create a dreamlike experience where everything conceivable and inconceivable could happen at once, and where time is not linear.
Julián Esteban Torres López (he/him/él) is a multiply neurodivergent, Colombia-born storyteller, public scholar, and culture architect with Afro-Euro-Indigenous roots. For two decades, Julián has worked toward humanizing those Otherized by oppressive systems and dominant cultures. He is the founder of the social justice storytelling non-profit The Nasiona, where he also hosts and produces The Nasiona Podcast. He’s a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions nominee; a Trilogy Award in Short Fiction finalist; and the author of Marx’s Humanism and Its Limits, Reporting On Colombia, and micro-poetry collection Ninety-Two Surgically Enhanced Mannequins. Julián’s work appears in PANK Magazine, Into the Void Magazine, Novus Literary and Arts Journal, Havik 2021: Inside Brilliance, Alebrijes Review, Fractured Lit, All My Relations, The Acentos Review, among others. His storytelling album Sfumato is available now.
Instagram + Twitter: @je_torres_lopez
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Heavy Skin
by Shakkoi
“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to wear skin less heavy.
Like would we get the time for nourishment and not have to grow up before we are ready?
Does God mourn for black skin?
Now how to prove this to my unborn son?
Feeling like we in the matrix with no Keanu.
If Trinity is our lover, I see no holy in it.
I want to have a child that I won’t have to worry about mourning.
I want to believe in the good of the morning each time I open my eyes,
But the reality rises so I wish thee a happy one.
Happy rising while we start disguising the heroes we see,
Since they get taken down like posters.
Pussies with pain in holsters,
How do you sleep with hate in your heart?
Allies I’m scared to have a son, cause I don’t know if I can save him.
Histories of single motherhood. Is that my destiny?
More reasons to fear for this unborn baby.
I can’t erase history, so I grab a pen to write for my future.
Black minds race as we live the races between races.
Races between our blood running on the streets,
Our tears racing each other down our faces.
The race from the media for mental time to breathe.
As we see them, who is us, slain PUBLICALLY!
They say be the change you want to see,
But how can one bring the community to the finish line,
When we see that even in a pandemic that doesn’t mean a stop to black crime.
Lemme ask you would you rather Malcolm X or just Malcolm?
Our goal is not take all the problems and just solve em
Legends remind us of the power of self beliefs.
Like they saw what was wrong and used their voices to believe.
Overstand the grand plans to change common beliefs.
Don’t carry the weight of our skin on your sleeves.
Don’t carry the weight of our skin on your shoulders.
Don’t carry the weight of our skin on your hearts.
Might look thin, but it’s heavy doe!
Galactic from the spiritual,
Can you hear the beauty of black skin?
Heavy skin,
A tale of alternative perspective as we praise our heavy skin like the gold that it is weighed
in,
MELANIN!!
Reminding us that you are not here to save us,
But to remind us to be united and
That for our rights we have always fighted.
It doesn’t matter if we make baby steps,
In the grand scale of things our ancestors saw their escapings as baby steps,
But look at us now!
Look at us now!
Black people hold your head high!
This heavy skin shines light in the darkest times.
Heavy Skin, a quarter to a dime.
Heavy Skin,
Heavy Skin,
I love my MELANIN.”
Shakkoi aka Need Some Koi is a multi-talented creative excelling in dance instruction and spoken word poetry. She is a two-time author and alumni of the University of Toronto. After performing as a dancer for six years, she is now focusing on making sure the world hears why they too Need Some Koi through her speaking, hosting and comedy appearances. Floetry Fitness, her business that focuses on creating spaces for movement and poetry, has been seen on Breakfast Television’s Movin in the Mornings, as well as the Nia Centre, Black Women in Motion and the City of Pickering organisations all in 2021 alone. Shakkoi’s unique, raw and powerful presence encourages many to “Release their Doubts & Step Out!”. With plenty of experiences to share, there is no doubt that everyone needs some Koi in their lives!
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Not A Niche
by Mo Pirela
Not A Niche
You are not a monolith
You are not a niche
You are everything
A discovery individually possessed
a solo exploration into the great unknown
an abyss ending in self destiny
fate
fallen
into chance
arms of embrace and protection projecting rejections that land
in the sea
like raindrops
unabsorbed unconsumed
bloomed
a production of floating flurries cold as ice to soothe the seething
ready for the world girl don’t be deduced
into nothingness
You are not a monolith
You are not a niche
You are everything
and everything in this world stops
carry on
applying pressure
until diamonds are procured
cure your sorrows with sleeves
banded by the bandits defeated not deflated
resurge revolt revolution
born to win with Winter
vocalizing songs of Summer
hair of Spring
lives full of Autumn Suns
set upon hearts of gold, bronze, and every indescribable color
Freedom sap
from nutrient rich dirt
soil oil royal
boy don’t believe a thing these fools say
you are not a monolith
you are not a niche
You Are
the Earth
God
Water Overflowing
Land breaking in on itself
Wind blowing like trains on an underground railroad
Blowing too fast
so loud that it commands spirits into
arousal
You are not a monolith
You are not a niche
You are everything and in everything
because everything
is you
Mo Pirela is a Black, lesbian, intersectional advocate, poet, & entrepreneur. She loves music, writing, & performing her poetry pieces, and being of service to others. Mo is the founder of an advocacy and empowerment based apparel brand that also provides business support services to marginalized business owners called Solidarity&Co. She is originally from New Bern, NC, but now considers Charlotte a second home. Mo is heavily inspired by her family, community, Black women authors, & activists who create inclusive spaces.
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Sicily
by Vivian Michaels
On Saturdays Sicily would get up, drink her coffee and milk which was really more like milk with a splash of coffee and she would go for a walk down to the park. The avenue would be full of people: mothers and fathers leading their children, kiosks, dogwalkers whose pets lead them by their leashes and amateur preachers asking people to save themselves from the sin of these last days. She loved walking beneath the trees in the mid-morning as she watched the cars rolling past her, some filled with furniture for a move, others with groceries for a party, and others packed to the brim with fresh faced teenagers and no room in the back seat. The park was some 25 minutes away and when she arrived she would sit on the side of one of the fountains that had a bronze equestrian statue of some old president when he was a general leading the country to victory from some foreign invader or another in the 19th century. The fountain was full of wishes turned pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters but Sicily always made sure to throw at least a half dollar or dollar coin in if she had one on her. No use in being cheap when you wanted your wishes to come true. After sitting for a while, she would leave and walk back to the apartment on the opposite side of the street. The parents, kids, preachers, dogs and teenagers were all at their destinations by now and had been replaced by others who were starting their Saturday journeys.
Monday came faster than Sicily thought it would. She spent all of Sunday evening preparing her clothes. A black trumpet skirt and a pink blouse and a simple necklace of pink beads would suffice. She couldn’t find her rose gold earrings her grandmother bought her for her twenty-first birthday, but she knew they were somewhere in the apartment. As she looked through her jewelry box on the dresser, she noticed how empty her bedroom looked. She didn’t need more furniture. The bed was a regular size and she also had an armoire and a small vanity. Maybe some green plants on the dresser would be nice. She would put them in the right spot so that the sun would hit them from the window and they wouldn’t be scorched. Just as she was about to walk out the door she remembered her French and Portuguese dictionaries. She wouldn’t need the Spanish dictionary since it looked like she was going to be working on mostly French translations for a while. She grabbed a small umbrella, added it to the dictionaries and keys in her tote and headed out.
The rain made the day seem to go a lot more slowly than normal. Every once in a while, she would look up at the window in her small office and watch the fat drops take their time sliding down the glass. The office was too quiet. People rarely talked to one another and when they did they were a few decibels above a whisper. She knew the place was full of secrets and she wanted to know as little as possible. She was relieved when she found out that the recordings she translated were never complete; they were usually split into three parts so that no one translator would know the entirety of what happened. One of her coworkers explained to her earlier that sometimes Sicily would get a part of a recording to translate in one language and might get a completely different recording in another soon after. Other times she would continue to work in the same language for a while. There was no real pattern so everyone would be on their toes. Still, the work could be boring at times. Having to listen to the recordings through the headphones would drain her after the first hour. Noon finally announced itself on her wristwatch. There was a nice looking café by the metro where she could get a soup and sandwich for a good price. She had skipped breakfast that morning just in case there was a problem with the trains. Sicily was seldom late for an event including parties so she made extra sure to be on time for her first day.
The café was buzzing with people picking up to go orders, waiting for a table with friends, the head cook trying his best not to shout too loudly at his staff, and the constant ding of the register’s bell. It was a combination of humid and cool inside with windowpanes giving onto the one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. The metro station was probably some seventy feet below them with its gaping entrance right to the left of the door of the café. An unbelievably sloping escalator carried commuters down into the humid depths today as they walked up and down as quickly as they could to get to their destinations. Sicily ordered the lunch special of the day, a medium size sandwich, a cup of soup and a drink. She changed the size of the soup to a bowl since they were serving New England Clam Chowder, her favorite. Unfortunately, they had just ran out of oyster crackers and she missed the extra salty taste. The sandwich more than made up for the soup though, with its three meats and two cheeses and mustard and mayonnaise. She savored the crunch of the slim pickle slices on the side of her teeth as she read the newspaper. Police arrested more rebels last night, this time only two blocks over from her apartment building. There was a photo of a young man in a red shirt and black pants striking a police officer in his left eye. Sicily wondered where the man was now, knowing that the police certainly arrested him. Was he in one of the jails in the city? Or did they take him somewhere else? Did his family know what happened? Hopefully they saw the headlines and recognized their son, brother, father, uncle or cousin. She was glad that no one she knew was involved. Her brothers were happy obeying her father’s orders and they weren’t exactly boat rockers. “The rebels will eventually see that they’re on the losing side and have to give in sooner or later. Why risk getting killed when they don’t have to?” She remembered looking at James, the eldest of her siblings when he said this at dinner once when she was visiting on the weekend from school. She had no reply.
A man walked into the café as Sicily folded the newspaper. He was tall, with medium olive skin and light brown eyes. He was covered from head to toe in olive green and wore a matching hat with what looked like a patent leather brim and laurel insignia in the front. His shoes were a spotless black, brilliant and perfectly laced. His broad shoulders and thick arms suggested a muscular build. In fact, thick would be the best way Sicily would have described him, this man who she now remembered she saw the other day as the elevator doors closed. He waited on line behind five or so customers for a minute before the manager waved him to the front and took his order. No one on the line complained. One or two smiled sheepishly as they watched him walk slowly toward the counter. He never gloated about small perks like this. The manager wasn’t exactly overselling his delight in waiting on the general, but it was two steps away from being obvious. He set to work preparing the general’s free meal of a triple decker sandwich with extra cole slaw and iced tea.
As he thanked the manager, he noticed Sicily sitting at the window with her newspaper folded on the table. She quickly sipped the last of her drink carefully, not wanting to slurp. The wax paper crunched softly under her hands as she wrapped the remainder of her sandwich which was going to be either tonight’s dinner or tomorrow’s lunch and put her used napkins into the soup bowl. He wondered if he should join her. It would be easy enough to start a conversation with her since she was his coworker now and they had seen each other before. She was even more beautiful in the amber grayish light of the café. Now he could fully appreciate her full pink lips and the roundness of her cheeks. Her eyes were brown and white almonds. She had a fresh looking face that didn’t appear too made up. As he approached her, he noticed a faint smell of lavender and vanilla.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” he asked. She looked up at him. Was his voice a baritone or a bass? Whatever it was it was comforting and rich. She shook her head. “No, it’s alright. I’m only going to be here for a little while longer.” She watched him put his food on the table, pick up the chair and sit down. They looked at each other for a brief moment, before he looked down at the table. He slowly pushed her food and bowl toward her not wanting to be rude and she let him. He opened his bottle of iced tea, took a small sip and put it down. “I’m General Mendham, Miss?…” He extended his hand and looked at her expectantly. “Miss Sloan,” she answered giving him her hand. He shook it softly. His hands were large and warm and completely engulfed her small smooth brown digits. She noticed his fingers were bare and that his fingernails were short and clean as a man’s should be. The general’s lips were full but not as full as hers and she watched them as he spoke. His teeth were too large, but they were white and blunt. He ate his food slowly as he listened to her answers to his questions. She’d told him her name but he didn’t recognize it. She certainly wasn’t from a known family here in the capital. He studied her features trying hard not to stare. He couldn’t trace a family resemblance to any of his men or a politician in her face. She wasn’t the daughter of anyone that he thought mattered. Still, he was hesitant. She was well mannered and well spoken. He guessed her short answers to his questions came from their relationship to each other. Caleb her boss, reported to this man and he had just hired her. She was respectful if not a bit cautious with him but not cagey. He decided that at the moment she couldn’t be hiding anything. She was just a young woman who probably didn’t want too much attention, especially the attention of a man like him.
They spoke for a few more minutes while the General made quick work of his sandwich. “I don’t want to keep you from getting back to the office if you need to get back,” he told her. The girl would be working for Caleb Atkins, a good soldier and an even better colonel. He’d heard Atkins was going to be taking on another translator now that that young lieutenant took that position in the Japanese embassy. The general looked at Sicily and hoped that she wouldn’t scuttle away. “I can wait for you if you’d like. I have another ten minutes or so.” She looked down at her wristwatch. It was a simple thin gold band with a face so small you had to be wearing it to tell what time it was. She watched him finish the last few bites of his food and wipe his mouth. “He must train very hard,” she thought to herself. “How else could he be in such good shape and eat that much at one sitting?” Sicily really didn’t want to stay with the man much longer but thought it best not to offend him. After he finished drinking his tea, he noticed the newspaper under her purse on the table. “So, they caught another one,” he nodded to himself. There was no real satisfaction in what he said rather an almost casual boredom of getting what one wanted most of the time. The rebels needed to be taught a lesson and they would eventually lose. Sicily nodded slowly with him as he reached across the table and took her bowl and napkins from her and his sandwich wrapping. He walked toward the garbage bins and threw the trash away while Sicily got up, collected her purse, umbrella, food and newspaper. She followed the captain through the tables toward the door. The manager gave the two of them a silent wave as the general held the door for her and waited as she opened her umbrella.
Heart Beats
by Vivian Michaels
Sometimes at night when I’m trying to go to sleep, I feel my heart beating. The room is dark and cool and I can feel the lub dub and I want it make it slow down a little. I wish I had kept up with my saxophone lessons from middle school. I would know how to write music and I would be able to write out my heart beats and make them into some sort of song. When I’m anxious which is a lot, I think my heart is pumping out electronica. If I’m sad it’s probably thumping something out of the blues. When I’m really mad at everything and everybody on earth I think it’s probably conducting its own opera, something with a lot of tympani in it because I too want to bang on shit. When I’m in love it’s probably playing some sort of salsa or tango. When I need to get stuff done it definitely starts scratching records and breaking. I think that my heart loves house music the most because it is the most healing. All of the drums, the bass, the way people dance to it is amazing. If I could actually move to rhythms on beat and connect my feet with the earth at the right time, I would dance to house more often. I think it’s a shame to not have rhythm. Everything on earth starts with some sort of beat or cadence and I have definitely lost it. I am off key, out of sync, and off beat. The only one I have left to remind me that I’m in the world is whatever my heart is doing at night. It’s probably deciding what song it’s going to do tonight and I just have to listen. Maybe one day I will begin to really, really listen to it and not just hear it and I will take a few baby steps, shake a hip, pivot, plié, arabesque or do something graceful. I had dance classes as a kid but I loved Saturday morning cartoons more, so I dropped out. That was dumb. Now I’ve got to learn something that I could have had all my life. How to connect my heart to my body. And here I thought the two were old friends. Turns out they are just acquaintances who see each other at the laundromat and borrow detergent from each other sometimes.
Vivian Michaels is a literature professor from New Jersey who has been learning from her students for the past twenty years. Her favorite genres are historical fiction and mystery. In her spare time she enjoys volunteering, walking, beaches and cooking for her family and friends.