Issue 1 >
Walls of Time
after Buddy Wakefield
by Amani Breanna Alexander
As best as I could remember,
This is how it happened...
There are still stains
On the walls of the room
To the left
Where I branded the pathway
For any man
To try and claim a woman from that house
Again.
There were three men
That fondled with the carpet
And thought I wouldn’t
Make fire out of their feet.
They all knew
They were not allowed to drag the rugged
Of their souls into my mother’s room,
Or her heart, Or her mouth,
Or her body.
In 1996,
One man kept out of her room
After making a bruised drought of her body
And took me too.
It was winter.
He used the snow as an excuse
To keep me from the ice
Of my mother’s shoulder.
He didn’t want me to get sick.
I was winter born
To live with the cold of his mouth
And her shoulder
Every year.
That snowed in day after Christmas
Was still cold the next August.
But I was built for the frost.
Both my parents were icebergs.
In 2000,
A man bought biscuits,
The cheesy ones.
The ones your aunties take out
From Red Lobster.
He bought his way into my stomach
And took a life from my mother’s.
He satisfied the hunger.
He satisfied the need.
I didn’t know him a few months later.
There was lighter fluid
In my memory
Where his body once stood.
I prayed that a woman
Would take from him
What he did from my mother.
He ran too fast for me.
But there is always fire
Waiting for him
Here.
In 2002,
Some guy came back around.
We only knew him through letters.
He got here
And thought he’d be able to
Wrap his body around my mother
Like he meant something to these walls
But he did.
He painted the room with her voice
After dark.
I heard it.
I heard her bend for him
And realized that my mother was human.
She had needs
She had soft places
She just wanted to be loved
Like me.
And he loved her.
Only daughters realize they are selfish
After their mother’s fall in love.
She told me what he’d done.
How he marked his DNA into her womb
And everyday,
We sat by her body
And waited.
Only daughters realize they are selfish
When their mother’s open
Their bodies to more children.
In 2003,
My brother left my mother’s body
And threatened to take her life with him.
I promised I’d never give
Any piece of myself to him.
He was another man.
He was another one that wanted my mother.
Walls and men
Both reminded me of the pieces
Of my mother that I lost.
I’d fall in love with you,
If you could love me like my mother used to.
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