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Dear Nikki, Please hear me…

verbs not metaphors

So today is not about the colorful way in which we intend to do something. Just DO

 

She Chronicles presents, “I Won’t Lie For Her” by Gianni North

I read an article the other day about a high school girl who refused to stand for the “Pledge of Allegiance.” I saw myself in her. I did the same thing when I was in eighth grade. At the time, Los Angeles felt post-apocalyptic. We were only a few years removed from the Latasha Harlins case and the LA Riots. My Black and Brown friends were being assaulted and handcuffed for no reason, murdered with impunity and many fell prey to mandatory minimums. I watched as children of immigrants jumped from the second-story windows of my junior high school to protest threats of deportation from a country that was stolen from their ancestors. I walked past homeless people begging to be seen as humans. Gay friends could not walk hand-in-hand. So I could not understand how I could be asked to pledge allegiance when I knew “with liberty and justice for all” was bullshit. It still is.

The young protester was expelled from school. She filed a lawsuit, determined to hold the Constitution to its promise. I hope she wins; but I’m a cynic. Even if she wins in court, she’s fighting to be readmitted to complete an inadequate education. S.T.E.M. classes are undervalued. Books are being removed from English and history classes for being too offensive.  All that’s left are watered down texts perpetrated as knowledge. They won’t tell our kids the truth. If they did, the system could not train them to be new slaves.

I want to write this young woman a note of encouragement. I want to tell her not standing means something; but I can’t. Just as my mother couldn’t tell me.

I love my country. She taught me “God Bless America” in elementary.  I sang with sincerity and my hand over my heart, but that was before I learned the history America wants to forget. She doesn’t want to talk about the European men who raped, murdered, robbed, and left her in bloody pieces. She tries to distract me with patriotism, but she can’t hide the truth. This is not the “give me your tired, your poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free” America. I have hope for that America. I’m willing to fight for that America. The truth is that version of our country is still just an idea written on old paper. It is the truth America fears the young protester already knows.

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 Gianni North

For bio and more works, visit: Indiefemme (Independent Women Making Independent Films)

She Chronicles presents, “Notions” by Sandra Rivers-Gill

When she was a girl in those days
Her Mama bought a piece of mosaic fabric
Weaved salvaged edges into historical truth
I heard her say

You could buy a piece of mosaic fabric
For ten cent a yard
She resounded with clarity
Through her veil of trimmed notions

For ten cent a yard
Inspiration was sewn into our lineage
Preserving amid the crow of notions
Her Mama made sack dresses from lack

Stitched threads that spurred our lineage
To crease hems in place of mediocrity
Sack clothing was made with praising hands
Because Southern crops impaled the boll of grasps

She turned to hymns instead of idle hands
And waved them like her Mama’s kinfolk
Who toiled fields that impaled their grasps
But their unbreakable spirit was their balm

Her Mama was as immovable as her kinfolk
She was vigilant and strong and learned
How to wear unbreakable spirit like a balm
That worked narratives into folded seams

She trained her daughters to be watchful; to study
How to buy yards of the mosaic fabric
And line their narratives into the upright seams
We weave our salvaged edges with tangible truth

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A native of Toledo Ohio, Sandra Rivers-Gill is an award-winning poet,

writer, performer and playwright. Her literary work has appeared, or is forthcoming in Common Threads, Toledo Streets Newspaper, the Toledo

Museum of Art (Online), Flights Literary Magazine and The Kerf. Sandra

served as the 2016 Literary chairperson for the Prizm Creative Community

Art-Affair Exhibition, and has been a featured poet in Toledo and

Dayton, Ohio and continues to read and perform  her poetry. She

currently facilitates poetry workshops at Naomi Inc., a non-profit

treatment facility for women in recovery from alcohol and drug abuse and

is the editor of Dopeless Hope Fiends, a poetry chapbook featuring the

work of the women she serves. Sandra studied communication and received

a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo.

She Chronicles presents “She Is Spirit, She Is Truth” by a Wise Woman

When a Phoenix rises from the ashes

She does not rise alone

She carries in Her wings

seedlings weighted in light not shone

 

She cradles them upon Her breasts

nurturing them with life-giving breath

She casts down the lies of oppression

they have been taught to believe is their destiny

 

Instead builds them up in Truth

to know they are to be

so much more than

just a dead epiphany

 

She strengthens their wings to soar

beyond the world’s interpretation

of who they should be…

imprisoned instead of free

 

She is mighty, She is fierce

Her wings an impenetrable fortress

protecting Her young from

the deadly arrows that pierce

 

She will fight and give Her life

She will weep the aches and bleed

the pain that is not Her own

for the seeds of Her womb

 

Yes, the Phoenix is a Mother

birthing spirits that fly beyond

to lead others out of their blindness

that only sees skin color, poverty, hopelessness

 

For you see, the Phoenix is not myth or legend

and cannot be seen by the eye of mankind

She is Spirit, She is Truth dwelling in empyrean heights

but upon this earth She is seen, and She is known

by another name…              

                                    WOMAN

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Click the link for more works by A Wise Woman’s Journey