Protest

The Sum Total of My Extensive Feelings about the 2020 Uprising/Rebellion/Revolt Against American Police and How It Is 1) Psychologically Damaging to Me as a Black Trans Woman 2) a Threat to My Physical Safety and 3) the Most Important Political Event of My Lifetime, Alexandrine J. Ogundimu

1

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today

I won’t accept this

So it seems I have a problem

2

My neighborhood is a warzone

Helicopters and bombs

Now I know one tenth of an Iraqi child’s fear

3

That which should not be

Must be removed with extreme prejudice

I am too tired to be clever

Alexandrine J. Ogundimu is a Nigerian-American, suicidally depressed, transgender garbage fire from Indiana. She lives in Seattle and works for a housing nonprofit. She received an MFA in Fiction at NYU, where her drinking problem blossomed into a full-fledged alcohol and drug addiction (Which is now in remission, thank God).

Eye for an Eye Not a Wink for a Wink!, Mawizana

An empty page

reflects your rage

while drip drops of

heavy pain

from the fountain pen

between your fingers

hatch with bleeding ink

Eye for an eye, not a

wink for a wink!

Babies were raped out

of their own lives

by white sycophants

kneeling to a Him

who does not serve

those that they

picked and pocketed

from

grass terrains

spiritual gains

& fulfilling rains

those that they

picked and pocketed

and fastened

with chains

clink and clank!

goes the coins

they make

shoot and attack!

goes their Him

A hymn will be heard

the battle has begun

wait in the water

children

you are the Gods

travelling from the Sun.

Mawizana is a young black poet from South Africa who would describe her writing as delicate yet hard hitting. She has been writing since her first year in highschool and has never stopped since. Instagram. Medium.

Three Poems, Nkateko Masinga

There Must Be Black Angels in Heaven

...a response to an article titled ‘There are no black angels in heaven’ by Lisa Sharon Harper

At the souvenir shop downtown

I ask to buy a brown angel doll

for my baby niece.

The shop assistant shrugs

as if to say there are no angels that look like me

or any of my people.

I pull out a photograph and show her

my niece

looking like all the black angel women

who stitched her together with their own bones and blood.

I put on my mother’s attitude and tell her

black dolls

black mannequins

black glass ballerinas

must exist.

I imagine dying here

and instead of someone saying

look, a black angel

they will say

if she flies,

she must be a witch.

I pray often

mostly to stay alive

but today I want to ask

if there are black angels in heaven.

Date Night in the City Centre

we are painting the city black tonight

– not red

If we paint it red, they will say we asked for the bloodshed

that we offered our bodies as a sacrifice

but these are mourning clothes disguised as skin

and those of us still living

will hold hands and be the walls of the city

and those who can’t stand will sit and be its pillars

and those who can’t sit will lie down and be its pavement

and by morning

(through our mourning)

we will have rebuilt the city

and if we could levitate

we would be the sky too

but if we stay out late enough

we will blend into the night

and the stars will come out

saying we can make a wish

But we don’t make wishes anymore

we only pray

and I am praying for life

I am praying for another chance

to have a date night in the city centre

and make it home alive.

Sunday Best

Mama used to pick out my church clothes

but these days my Sunday best is a broken heart

and a question about America

and South Africa

and the world.

I want to know where to be black and alive

at the same time

and it is not America

or South Africa

or the world.

Nobody can pick out an outfit for you

when you are already overdressed in grief

There are pieces of me scattered across oceans

shards of glass that won’t be gathered

Someone please collect me –

wear gloves. the edges are sharp

Someone bring back my body

Someone please check the last seen option on my profile

Am I still here?

Was it my sister

or me

or my mother

who didn’t make it home

to pick out a church outfit

for her daughter?

Nkateko Masinga is an award-winning South African poet and 2019 Fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 and her work has received support from Pro Helvetia Johannesburg and the Swiss Arts Council. In 2019, she won the Brittle Paper Anniversary Award. Nkateko is an interviewer and director of the Internship Program at Africa In Dialogue, an online interview magazine that archives creative and critical insights with Africa’s leading storytellers, as well as the founder and managing director of NSUKU Publishing Consultancy. She is the author of a digital chapbook titled THE HEART IS A CAGED ANIMAL, published by Praxis Magazine. Her latest work has been selected by the African Poetry Book Fund, in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2020 New Generation African Poets chapbook box set.

She teaches three annual online poetry courses: 'Before The Silence', 'Punching Underwater' and 'Where The Tram Stops.'

Five Poems, R.D.Johnson

Divided

A world divided

We live in a world

Where things such as black and white

Things that should be black and white

Become gray and selective depending on topics

The trending topic for several years is what lives matter

There shouldn’t be a disconnect

But people should connect the dots

And paint the picture of the two different worlds

That we live in...

Enter the multiverse

Racism marvels and our leader wants to snap away the “problem” with their Thanos fingers

We’re not the problem

We’ve just been living in this infinite war for generation after generation

Where we’ve become conditioned that in order for us to make a change

We must incite a reaction

We have voices

We have actions

We have power

We matter

And we will be our own Avengers creating this blockbuster moments for history

That when people read in textbooks

They will have to full digest all of this

We are distraught

We are angry

We drained

We are tired

We are done

We see sometimes what we want to see

We hear only key words or phrases that make us go through phases of dealing with consequences that a normal troubled heart faces

We are sometimes afraid to speak rationally so through irrational actions we get our point across

All of these things equate to the world we live in

I usually don't do this, speak my mind on current events

But when the events currently have me sometimes afraid to do anything let alone misbehave

I just go numb...

Everything goes black

Start to see white

And then we’re back in this gray area

I just want things to change

I want my mind to be at ease

Because right now it’s a constant struggle between sadness and anger

And I know people can relate

Video Games & Movies

originally published by Daily Drunk Mag

It’s like we are living in a video game

The things I’ve read, seen and witnessed in a week

Could’ve all been scripted for the next Grand Theft Auto

Senseless acts of violence

Over and over again

Senseless killings

Over and over again

As if people are inept to the five senses

They see nothing wrong with what they’re doing

They don’t hear the cries of the victims

They feel no remorse for their actions

As if the devil has overtaken them

Ravenously seeking out pain and torment that they can taste

And they don’t have any words because their actions speak loudly for themselves

The state of my mental wants to volley back and forth

But I’m not letting it win

My mind is saying drink

Well I’m not trying to be buzzed for lightyears

As we living out a toyed story of how a system

Wants to be our Andy and we should join in and sing you got a friend in me

Nah I’m not doing that, I’m not Woody

We’ve been buzzed for lightyears thinking that things will get better with time

Yeah, too infinity and beyond right?

I watched the same movie

We tired of waiting

We want the change now

And we gonna be the change

Lady Liberty

Where are you when we need you

Everything that you fought for

That you stand for

Is being tested

True colors being displayed

Of the hamster wheel we’ve been living in

For generations

Since America was born

The system

The ranking of races

Even with all the hurdles we’ve overcome

It’s look like it was all practice on the track & field

We think going the distances meant progress

Only to have been shotput leaps and bounds in the wrong direction

We just want to be seen and treated as equal

And be freed from the chains engrained in our core

That to them, we’re just chaotic animals fighting a losing battle

And there waiting for us to become unchained

So they can put us down

We are in the midst of a burgeoning Martial Law

But this is not the dragon fist, flip kicking fighter from Tekken

They’ve taken our iron fists that we’ve peacefully held up high demanding equality

And told us to follow them or else

This is not a game anymore

Things are getting real

I pray for all of us

I pray that this fight that we’ve been fighting for so long

That we will be finally heard

Cuz right now...

The media shows

Cops beat us up

A life been taken down

Riots go up

Curfews come down

States on the left

45 on the right

Resolution on the left

Control is on the right

Beneath it All

You can start to see the cracks of a nation

And not a cheat code in the world can make it better

Look At Me

originally published by Trampset Mag

Look at me

Now really look at me

Get past the dichotomy that’s been engrained in everyone’s head

What you want to believe versus what you are taught to believe

This skin

I am more than a history’s outlook of how we should be portrayed

No matter the time period

I am more than a statistic

A stereotype

Anything that begins with a ST

And not to end with a D

Because we are not a disease

And infection that you cannot be immune to

We are kings

We are queens

We are a movement

Our voice echoes

The past, present and the future

Renaissance men and women

More creative in ways

That popular culture would like very different

If it wasn’t for this pigment

I am black

I am then

I am now

I am what’s to come

We are not less than

We are equal

We just want to be heard

And not for your entertainment

I am black

And you will not take that away from me

KINGS

A nation under God

Where a checkered flag turned into a chess

Where many kings think they rule the land and want to stick out there chests

A race left divided and for years they think we were fools

Had us for years thinking we’ve progressed no matter who in charge rules

We live in the land of red white and blue

Yet that flag bleeds after every senseless death

And there’s people out there that will be happy if there wasn’t any of us bad ones left

Little do they know we are kings too

Of all different suits

There’s those that call a spade a spade

These upside down black hearted souls

Are done with the endless pain we’ve experienced

There’s those that are a diamond in a rough

Endured so much that they will ensure a change will come

Those that have heart will make a change

And there’s nothing you can do to stop us

We must avenge our clubbed Kings

We must bring about a revolution of thinking

Revolution of being

We cannot do it without the help of our Queens either

Just know we’ve been fighting with the hands we’ve been dealt since the beginning of time

The outdated way of thinking will have to fold eventually

And we’ll be there to make sure of it

Reggie Johnson is an author reigning out of Cincinnati, Ohio. At the age of 9, he found a love for writing while on summer vacation. With influences from music, Reggie has created a rhythmic style of writing to tell his personal experiences and beyond. Reggie’s latest book, Audio Therapy, along with others can be found on all major online retailers. Twitter. Instagram.

Divided, Lady Liberty, Video Games & Movies and Look At Me will be featured on Lumiere Review.

Protest is a space for Black writers to share their writing.

For so many, creative writing is a way to communicate and understand our biggest emotions. It is the celebration of our humanity and an exploration of our relationship with the world around us.

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