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.

---

Colours of Love :: Setu, July 2022