Viviana Nunez - How To Write A Story When Words Fail You (Poetry)

Thoughts and Prayers

one look out the window reveals a blazing dawn

a sly rook named Jim cries checkmate as it dives for its prey

I still weep for my brother, not sure if I’ll ever stop

they were doing their job, they said

they took my baby brother away, I said

why are they afraid

I should be afraid,

the Scottsboro Boys know this

83 years later and not enough has changed

all this progress but my baby’s life is through

a man shouts, a woman screams, smoke rises

he could’ve been a scientist, an artist

a mathematician, or part of an aircrew

or just alive, visiting on Christmas, that be nice

does your baby brother visit you?

it began with a toy gun, benign as it was

and he looked at them and they became afraid

afraid of a child, an innocent being

George Stinney Jr. knows this

70 years later, no weight is as heavy as this

did you know he loved drums?

ba dum ba dum ba doom

two shots and my baby is dead

you should have been compliant, they said

my baby is not coming back, I said

I hear their roar, their hurt, their fear

wrong place, wrong time

the Central Park five, just teenagers

how to survive, how to survive

25 years later, do you value our lives?

my sisters understand, they’re angry too

my brothers feel my sorrow, their fear is true

momma wasn’t able to touch baby

his body was evidence, they said

I’ve never known a pain like this, I said

time doesn’t heal everything, some scars don’t go away

Emmett Till knows this.

59 years later and my brother knows this too

still, they tell us to be quiet, to stop spouting our lies

and you wonder why the city is on fire

How To Write A Story When Words Fail You

How to write a story when words fail you. When words are out of reach, when you refuse to open your mouth and speak. When the world twists and turns and you no longer find comfort under its sheet of gray.

Night and day consume one another, and you are stuck in their bellies. Toxic, unyielding, undying, incapable of escaping their acidic selves, wondering if there ever was a time when night and day loved one another and did not pretend and lie to get what they want. When you could watch them hold hands, leaning on one another, letting each other breathe, bathing in their own light without drowning the other, stifling warmth, smudging pigment, making themselves disappear in the process.

You wonder if there was ever a time when words were more than noise. When you and time were not speaking and it had lost, not found you. You wonder when feet were for running, dancing, and jumping, unbound, into the sky. When food was for you. A beat, a rhythm, a tether to another place. When nature was color, vibrant, moving. When birds painted the sky and rain textured your eyes. When grass was a bed and simultaneously someone’s hand to hold. When a laugh escaped you and you knew it was real. You wonder if there was ever a time when music never got wrinkly, aged by overuse.

You wonder if there was a time when dreams were not your only respite. When dreams were not all you dreamed of every morning when you awoke from them. When your dreams returned color to the world, rather than hoarding it, keeping it for themselves.

You know not to trust your own mind. Because it sifts through your memories, pushing good ones to shadows, trapping bad ones on your tongue. Keeping your loud mouth shut. Your blood could be boiling, your earth shattering, curling into fists are your hands but will you screech when noise leaves your lips or will you break? Will you cry? Will you feel only to return to its absence again and again? So maybe feeling is work, and maybe your feet are stuck in place.