Katherine's Coffeehouse

Shall I tell you I am disabled? That I no longer can fend for myself? Or shall I tell you I now write the poetry you mocked me for because it does not pay the bills?

Let’s set the record straight. I do not claim to know what god might be, nor do I entirely get gestalt.

I did not know what I would write this morning as the treeline got etched in wisps of ivory blond—until I remembered I did not get to properly grieve you. Not really, anyway. Sure, I wrote you a poem. Sure, I teared up now and again, like I am now when I think of everything you did and offered, but mostly, selfishly, I miss your listening,

What would you rather hear? That six or seven or twelve times or more I actually had ideation, or that I walked away, instead, unharmed? That I

It’s not that I shoulder a navy pack on my disintegrating back. It’s not that I have swallowed the kind of pills that retch even the rage out until

Oh to be unconditionally loved when dead, division dissolved by the peaceful inevitable. Oh to the victory that made us one, the blood of battle and repair no longer questioned as worthwhile, immune to “what if?” in its sad reality, replaced by “what is” and “what was.”

I return to that Place of Peace, and the wisdom of ancient things, the one that reintroduced itself

See, you were the only Black kid in the whole damn school, and the teacher had to split us up because of how hard we laughed together.

This (unedited) poem won first place in a contest on The Political Poet. And while I am grateful, that's not necessarily the important part. The important part is the way this debate spun out of control. The way citizens were encouraged to gang up on other citizens as the county turned a blind eye to hate groups and racism.

So I found this short story I wrote back in 2009. I am not a fiction writer. It's really not my forte. And while I don't even remember writing this piece, I do remember WHY I wrote it and what was happening at the time. I have not bothered to edit it. So with that, I will let you enjoy a piece of what I will call magical realism. -Katherine