Tremaine L. Loadholt (Colours of Love and Barriers)

Tremaine L. Loadholt
A North Carolina writer, Tremaine L. Loadholt has been published in literary journals, anthologies, and magazines, and has also published three poetry books: Pinwheels and Hula Hoops, Dusting for Fingerprints, and A New Kind of Down. She’s editor and creative director for Quintessence: A Literary Magazine of Featured Medium Writers. Her artistic expressions are on A Cornered Gurl, Medium, LinkedIn, and Simily.


Why Can't We Be Better Human Beings? 

I wake up with three strikes
against me every morning;
I’m Black, a woman, and bisexual.
Before I take my first sip of coffee,
or walk my dog or relieve the
pressure my sinuses issue
daily, I am a prisoner
of a wrathful world.

There are some who deny
the evil lurking within the
shadows of our inhumane selves,
but I see the anguish lining
the faces of people struggling to
live in the skin clinging to
their bleeding flesh.
Some of us have been yelling
at the top of our lungs for
decades; left with bruised voices.

Can you hear us? Are you listening?

Back when I dwelled in
the closet, I messed around with
a woman who had been
“passing the time” with me—living
out her fantasies.
She’d learned this behavior from
her father, who learned it from
his own, and the cycle continued
with her. I was a thing to
lean on and in when her main
source of comfort wasn’t around.
I have always been someone
for people to try on, see if I
fit, then exchange for a better
model when that model is
available.
This is not the fault of
one person, it is the birth
of a damaging generation that
doesn’t know how to change or
if it even can.
Why can’t we be better
human beings?
What’s stopping us?
We would rather torture
the helpless, bomb the harmless,
and manipulate the oppressed than
work in harmony toward solutions
to make life easier for everyone.
I used to believe in love as
the strongest antidote for ailments
of any kind, but now ... I am certain
we need this world to shift in
an entirely different direction if
we have any chance of surviving.
This cruel world hammers away
at the beauty of love.
It grinds it down to dust and
sprinkles it over our wounds.
It wants to see us fade away—never
to be heard from again.
When a nation can silence a woman,
shoot and kill innocent children,
brutally beat people of color
into submission, and oppose
legitimate elections, we have
lost all sure footing.
And love stands patiently in
the shadows waiting for us
to reel in our senses.
I wake up with three strikes
against me every morning;
I’m Black, a woman, and bisexual.
Before I take my first sip of coffee,
or walk my dog or relieve the
pressure my sinuses issue
daily, I am a prisoner
of a wrathful world.

This shouldn’t be, and we know it.

2 comments :

  1. Wow - amazing piece! I am neither Black nor bisexual, but this encapsulates the way I see the world today. We can and must do better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My goodness. Few bleed on the page like you do. Even fewer have the skill you have to draw it from others … line by line.

    ReplyDelete

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