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William Evans

William Evans

Blackest Night #6 (2010)
 
the rings are / just trinkets / solid, black / empty vice
without a / betrothed finger / to strangle / so I guess
death be / like that too / because a casket / just a box
until a / hero fills out / the dimensions / like air in an
ever shrinking / space / no wonder Hal / and Barry ain't
tryin' to / go back when / the rings start / whispering
nostalgia / of the empty / heartbreak / they once shared
and everybody / dead now / or dead again / I guess is
the proper / nomenclature / wouldn't want / to disrespect
the way a / white hero can / rise so quickly / from the
eternity  / where the black / heroes swim / long enough
to develop / gills or schools / of tombstones / like fish
but I still / get the way / that Green Lantern / hitched a
chain around / The Flash's / chest and held on / for dear
life (for the / moment) and / let Flash enter the / speedforce
before they / entered another / grave and while / I never
befell an / accident that rendered / me the fastest / man alive
I have ran / fast enough to keep / me breathing / even while
my friends / became death and / decaying versions / of someone
I once loved / and how easy / an argument to make / that heroes
you knew / in life are no longer / living so what right do / you have
to still see / the blue entity on this side / of the longboxes / I guess
if a ring / comes for me, at least / I know I've got / good company
or at least / a school of water logged / heroes who / never got
another rebirth / or #1 with their / name on the / cover  slightly
larger / than the white author / who deemed them / worth living
 

​Abolitionist Daisy Fitzroy of Bioshock Infinite Tells Me The Cost of Things
The Night Before She Dies
 
Baby boy, I don't know what to do
with the glistening neck of an innocent
any more than the exposed breastplate
of a man who branded me, if I'm the one
still clutching the blade, so I guess I treat
them both like an extra voice crawling
around in my head that needs to be carved
out until I am a hollow spell, a red river
the girls who don't smile, play in until
their hair drips like a bleeding sunset.
I loved a man once, or rather, I let him
love me long enough for him to
 
open my shackles. I grabbed a pistol, thanked
him by emptying his guilt at close range.
It was messy, but it decorated my favorite
dress. Maybe if we take the factory
 
back tomorrow, I'll let you take me dancing
in it and we can pretend to love their
music while we swing our breezy bodies
over their empty gazes from the soaked earth.
 
They baptized me when I was little,
ya know, and I don't mean little as in
young, I mean little as in I still thought
the Lady of the house loved me like
 
a daughter and not a toy to clutch during
the night. Or a pet who came when called
and rubbed my belt-worn back against
her pearl stockings. I didn't kill the lady,
 
didn't ever raise a fist in her holy glare.
Still ain’t met a dead white woman
worth giving up the sky for.
Still haven’t prepared my body for
 
the bronzing and spectacle to signal
their victory. They don’t get to live
in a world where I ain’t branded their
forehead with my crosshairs
 
or wrapped a scarlet ribbon ‘round
Their neck like a promise I was keeping.
Cause ain’t that what real beauty is, baby?
Ain’t blood spilled for the sake of the blood
 
being mine to keep, the shade that looks
best on me? Wouldn’t you want to be on
the arm of the Belle of the Ball, before we
wash the conquest from our unbridled hair.
​

William Evans is a writer from Columbus, OH and the founder of the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam (September 2008) and Callaloo Fellow.
In addition to being the Editor-in-Chief of Blacknerdproblems.com, William has published two collections of poetry on Penmanship Books with a third collection "Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair," on Button Poetry in late 2017. His work can be found online or forthcoming in Winter Tangerine, Muzzle Magazine, The Offing, Union Station Magazine and other online publications.
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