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I rejoice. What for you may ask? I lay (mostly) in the earthy ground,
embittered – as hard as a kernel. Why then have I earned the privilege to
be happy, content? The answer is that I rejoice in the torment of others,
and indeed myself, mostly myself, if I have to be ghostly-transparent.

When I grabbed Lockwood’s unwilling wrist and wielded it back and
forth like a saw over the cruel, sharpness of the windowpane glass, it
made my face crease into a malevolent smile. His long, hopeless face
looked right at me: petrified, stupefied with fear. An outcrying of blood
dripped in, and throughout, the jagged windowpane, satiating its
darkened thirst.

Do I have a personal vendetta against Lockwood? No. Am I prejudiced
against men? No.

Do you want to know the truth behind my violent outbursts? Is it due to
insanity? Personal grudges? My untimely death? Hate? Despair? The
truthful answer is:

love.

As Emily described so emphatically, my love for Heathcliff was
otherworldly, perniciously strong like bolts of tightened steel. Her
words:

‘My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of
little visible delight, but necessary.’

Like blood, air, sustenance – I breathed him in and he remains: a willing,
perpetual lodger. He tickles my splintered heart with a crow’s macabre,
dun-hued feather, and I laugh. My cavernous shell rattles with his
presence – a sticky film that binds, enfolds pieces of me: twists, entwines
our souls.

We are one and the same, Heathcliff and I, akin to the Tudor rose where
white and red merge: a fused, potent hybrid. This togetherness, and
blurring of identity. makes us a symbol of alternative, subversive beauty.
Ours is heathen, otherworldly, deathly sublime.

Our combined petals are now black and glossy: decadently velveteen like
a wild hare’s pointed ears. I caressed those infantile, tender petals, held
them close to my heartstrings. With time’s expectations, it dyed them
inky black – no longer did any healthy pink flesh remain. It was like being
willingly drowned, completely submerged, in a chest of gelatinous tar.
You can never quite remove the residue or the skin-clinging smell like
pungent onions after such a completeness, an overture of self.

His soul wanders brooding, fierce and unrelenting, catching on rock
snags, heather-clad outcrops, memories of us.

As children, I would hold his grubby, tanned hand and be lost, swallowed
wholeheartedly, whilst dashing across The Moors with him. My soul sang
of contentment, in those natural, feral days. We were fierce like fighting
dogs, ready to bite any intruder; any disturber of our sanctity. And we
did, with no remorse, reflection.

The Moors were ours: to run unshackled, ride wild horses upon
bareback, and kiss under sheltering trees. Our being: a life force ran
between us, AC/DC like a fine-tuned circuit board. Electromagnetic – an
energy chemically fierce, unstoppable…

A love as ferociously dangerous as ours, struggles to keep a flame
flickering in this mortal world. Our muted, gothic feathers roared
ardently like a phoenix close to rebirth. We burnt too ravenously:
scorched the Earth.

Our true reunion was in my death. It was then, and only then, that
Heathcliff could finally, and completely, lock his soul to mine with a
lover’s timeless padlock.

I returned to him freely, nightly, perpetually in death. Of course I chose
to. Linton separated our bodies but he could never stop my soul,
carelessly skipping, back to him – always him.

Heathcliff so close to me now, like we were as children, craves for death,
a longing that eats through membranes of self. Chews them, then spits
them out on the cold stone-clad floor. He drinks to oblivion, refuses to
eat: a continual effort to rid himself of his physical shell. Mortal cufflinks
shattered…

His body, writhes and frays, on the periphery of being – it teeters there in
my enclosed childhood bed. His tears soak into the embers of me,
rekindle my stony heart.

Finally, after days of hell-alarming torment, he lets go of this cruel,
misunderstanding, prejudiced world – floats to me, wills it so.
I lace my willing immortal fingers with his: they interlink and lock
perfectly. A marriage of two minds. My soul refitted, with tiny pieces of
him, moulding, healing the shattered cracks.

We wander now like nighttime demons, traversing, gliding on Top
Withins’ downy moors – our wild childhood playground, our souls’ joy.
I’ll never let go of his firm, endearing, life-giving hand.

“For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son”- John 3:16

In this house, Father is the proper name for God, our world, His House, His House, His Rules or
we’ll all go to Hell tonight,

Clean it up or I’ll throw it away. Do you want me to cut it off? Then stop crying. YES WHAT? YESSIR
That’s Chief God to you.

GPS tracker on His wife’s car, His wife WILL take His children to Church while He sleeps off His
hangover. For God so loved Jack Daniels, He “doesn’t remember” what He’s done, and,
Frankly, my dear, that’s a Family Readiness problem, not His problem.
God never has problems. God doesn’t have a problem.
like I don’t have a problem,
like Just take the picture sweetie,
with the I Love You sign,
smile until it sets in permanently,
strive to be a Stepford Soldier’s Wife.
Shut your mouth, stay strong for your sisters, stand straight, straighter, STRAIGHTER!

A morning-after silence. A leaving for Iraq silence. A drunk driving into the lake silence.
A Gold Star Adjacent silence.
Army brats don’t cry. Army brats don’t question. Army brats hide cuts under bracelets because
You.Will.Not.Embarass.This.Family.Like.This.

But let us go back to the beginning,
Once, God had a God who flew birds over Vietnam,
And that God had a God who flew birds over Korea,
And he married a woman whose God performed in the Pacific Theatre,
And they gave birth to my God.

Once, my God picked a favorite plaything and named her Eve,
taught her that her pain was always her fault,
tricked her, and tested her, and traumatized her,
showed her God’s will was unknowable.

And Eve and God begat three daughters,
who prayed to God for hours and were still too scared to sleep,
God pays the electric bill, so when He says, “Lights Out!”,
He means nightlights, too, and I never understood how anyone
could sleep in the darkness & silence of His House.

But back to the beginning,
God gave me life,and
God gave his life for me, and
God forgot my name if it wasn’t written on an old phone bill, and
God is too hard to talk to so I blocked his number.

But let us go back,
His Daddy’s Daddy’s whiskey begat
His Daddy’s whiskey,
which begat His whiskey
which begat His childrens’ whiskey,

and God’s love begat the holes in hearts and walls,
and those holes begat new holes,
and the holes craved someone who would stay,
but they were holes
that could never be healthy,
so they always left.

His love is leaving,
His love is Don’t you understand how gone I was for you?
His love is unopened Christmas presents, and missed Toby Keith concerts, and
“I thought you were on a different continent.”

His addictions begat His love,
His love begat His mistresses,
His mistresses begat my love addiction,
my love addiction begat my sex addiction
and my sister’s love addiction begat her sons,
who He still hasn’t seen
because His second wife begat Him a Replacement Son
who He hasn’t fucked up yet.

And His threats against a possibly-gay baby begat my youngest sibling’s terror,
and their terror begat my rage,
and my rage begat all the children I will never have,
who will watch God’s name buried in the sand.

Sandbox- U.S. Army slang for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait

Gather ‘round the fire
I’ll tell you all
about the man who killed
those lovers. They were
campers just like
us. Under the moon’s
spotlight, lips
met. He slipped
a hand over her
knee. A strange aura
filled the air. He pretended
not to feel, she took
a breath and braced
herself for what would
happen next.The killer
struck. An ax raised
high and fell down
upon the boy’s
neck. The girl
screeched and
peed. The Axe-
man killed her
next. And here is the part
where I scream,

“Boo!” and you all
shriek real loud. Oh,
you crybabies can
complain, but you know
that I’ve won. Because

tonight, we sleep
beneath trees, where
their screams echo

in your dreams.

I call to you
newfound accepted chemistries
teach me the joy of freshly grown contact
no eyes following our display
I bid adieu
to crocheted saphistries
mindless objections
feverly debacles.
I welcome
You
Your sight has grazed me
this wounded weakling
you titled “painted warrior”.
I embrace
This
us
our love-toned lenses
our humour softened sorrows
our collective educated metacognitions.
There is
this imperfect bliss
that you feed me
in pre-cured meals
and heart-painted mementos
Thank you
newly loved,
Thank you.

Grandfather took me out to a nearby field when I was just a wee nipper.
He swayed from
side to side
whilst I marched with purpose,
the large telescope being dragged a mere inconvenience.

We stopped in an open clearing.
He took a swig, I took a breath.
Follow the moth to your destiny, he told me,
pointing at the constellation shining brilliant in the sky.

Don’t you mean to say, “like a moth to a flame?”
I stood on my little toes, seeking the constellation he mentioned.
No, child, follow the moth to your destiny,
Grandfather urged, nudging me towards his line of sight.

Don’t you mean to say, “be the master of your destiny?”
Grandfather pointed to the sky once more, his finger shaking like a leaf.
Follow the moth to your destiny; it’s in the constellation!

I peer into my whisky glass,
as grandfather had once done, trying to decipher those words once more.
I soon learned, after his passing, the part about the moth to my destiny
Was nonsense.
However,
I never stopped believing my destiny lay in the constellation.

They told me I would find the constellation I was seeking
On someone else’s skin,
when the moon illuminated the love we’d make.
Every spot, freckle and scar would be revealed
and would form the constellation to my destiny.

I’d laid on my back once,
while I felt someone else’s skin on mine.
Where I thought there’d be stars and pulsing light,
behind my closed eyelids there was none:

I do not feel desire.

A lonely star I then was-
Cygnus the Swan’s flight led many straight to me,
whilst Perseus and Andromeda were all around me,
their love written in the northern hemisphere.

A lonely star I still was
but a pulsar-
Tendrils of energy shooting out to spread my love
while also shining brilliant within myself.
I had no one but myself to love:

The master of my own destiny.

The sound of the lock twisting
draws my attention away from my whisky glass.
And, there you are,
with a smile brighter than the sun.
I stand up, drawn to you:

Like a moth to a flame.

I could not follow the moth to my destiny
Nor was my destiny on someone else’s skin, or in the skies:
I found my constellation shining brilliant in your eyes.

Eyes glued to backs of blue hats seven rows
ahead in shaky takeoffs. Knowing his
hand-squeeze needs – thinking of oxygen masks and switching seats and… you look up from

writing this poem to realize You’ve missed locking eyes while he stands to let the window seat
slide past. He’s slinking back into the middle. You look up from

Pride and Prejudice to find you’re in love and a wife
And the wedding gifts were not written down and your poem is incredibly ineloquent because
you looked up

Love poems on poetry.com and none of them fit the love you two have because none of them are
by you about a phenomenaly mundane experience that no one looked Forward to but is wholly
yours. You look up from

5 feet and seven inches off the ground to meet his eyes seven inches above yours as you did
yesterday before you were a wife, and you realize that you’re a wife.

willow tree.

by Dayna Pratt
When I was little,
I prayed for straight hair.
Times when my mother took
me and my sisters to the grocery store,
I would rush to the hair section,
visiting the young Black girls
that lived on the pink and green
relaxer boxes.

Their smiling faces
under the fluorescent lights,
airbrushed to obscurity,
reminded me of what I would never have.
They seemed happier than me,
as though the second
the relaxer melted away their hair texture,
all of their problems
and insecurities
melted away with it.
I wanted that same happiness.

My screen became tormented by
women with loose curls
telling me how to define my coils.
Saying how easy it was
to grow to love
their natural state.
But the world said theirs was ‘good’
and mine nappy.
And theirs neat
but mine messy.

That a big chop is all it would take
is the biggest lie ever told
because where their hair grew back as springs
mine puffed out in folds
like a willow tree.

So I found my love
in the smiles
of little Black girls
who gazed up at me
and saw me in them,
and them in me.

I found my love
in spaces
where my skin
was my most defining feature
and Black hair
was Black hair
all bad hair
because to them,
it was all the same.

I found my love
in decades of essays.
Where my hair
became my Blackness
and womanhood
and who I was
was finally my own.

But I still haven’t straightened my hair
scared that my sense of self is a lie
and that once the heat burns away
my curls
my love for them,
for myself,
will be gone with it.

In the end nothing mattered,
nothing really….

I wanted to be the daylight of his sunshine without knowing it would destroy me,
break me apart, tear me up as if I am just a frail glass of Cosmo.

A Cosmic error of his life,
While he is the light of my dimly lightened house of tunnels.
Tunnels that connect immorality with quarrels.

The lover inside me isn’t dead yet, at-least my disorder isn’t…….
It is keeping the very last hope alive by hallucinating, hoping just one day—he
would appear and destroy this fort….

Which is now surrounded by the enemy soldiers aiming for my heart.

From here our captain sets sailing today.
Poems in hand there stands the silent crowd.
A misty glass of moonlight toasts his way.

On the horizon beams the sun’s last ray,
A glimmering edge gilds the vine and bough.
From here our captain sets sailing today.

In the evening breeze the willow twigs sway,
The road ahead smooth as a perfect vow.
A misty glass of moonlight toasts his way.

So who, tomorrow, will to us relay
Their writing tips, or tell us they are proud?
From here our captain sets sailing today.

As he departs from our hearts young and gay
Back into the arms of the long white cloud,
A misty glass of moonlight toasts his way.

And there, outside his office door, we stay
Reading, one last time, poems clear and loud.
From here our captain sets sailing today.
A misty glass of moonlight toasts his way.

Enchanted me
Enchanted by a thought,
Ascending from distance,
I heard an incitement:
“Write me down, pen up my words, as u hear this voice, note down if u get the morse!!!.”
My Pen once again driving me insane!!!
There it goes! My eternal curse!!!
Caught my whole consciousness,
Entrapped my soul.
Drawing me into some bulky papers,

Thus Pull me!
Pull me into some inky pages,
Attached as a whole by spiral binding.
Then Bold me up in special issue of popular publications!
Value this chest of fidelity, such an urge for equality,
Seems this pen-player just wants to pay every pulse each drop of blood pumping inside , just to
be sacrifice for sake of eternity of poetry.
So Tear me not!!!
Just smoothly separate me side to side
And spread me slowly throughout the lines bit by bit, byte by byte!
No portrait of me on a glossy paper!
Don’t ever blind my sight by a classic shot!
Don’t demonize me in a selfie!!!