A Special Feature Showcasing Words & Images by Inweekly Readers
Independent News | August 4, 2022 | Volume 23 | Number 31 | "Take The Leap" By Devin Bonner
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Photo By Geoff Peck
A Special Feature Showcasing Words & Images by Inweekly Readers
August 4, 2022
When we started the By You issue in the summer of 2020, we weren't sure what to expect or if we'd ever do it again. But, of course, Inweekly readers are a cool and creative bunch, and we loved seeing and reading your work, so we had to keep it going. For this third installment, most of the submissions we received were poetry, so you'll see a lot of that on the next few pages, plus some really cool photography and art. Most of these pieces are so different from anything we normally write or publish here at Inweekly that working on this issue is always a little mental vacation for us. We hope that feeling translates for you, too, and maybe even inspires you to do something creative yourself. {in}
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My Goodbye to Pensacola By Charles Mccaskill What is the opposite of scorched earth tactics? Is it carefully reeling in my roots from the dirt that birthed me? So that something can grow here again? So that my roots can reach solid soil in a different garden? My hands are large and not deft. They fumble with prunings and farewells. Restless fingers wanting to write strange stories I've yet to imagine. I've followed the coast line of our state down like the hands caressing a lover who is equal parts bitter and sweet. The world is a large place and has never been more accessible than it is now. With the nomad at my side and no seeds tying us to any land. But I am a product of the gulf. The smell of salt water on the air is every bit of who I am in my bones. I have built my body with the sands of broken shells. I have loved and have been loved by the gods of hurricanes and the lived-in-silence of power outages and road closures. I have gained and lost and regained friends over the sweet sticky of rum and mistakes and poetry.
Race to Revolution By LaChelle McCormick Johns
3D Printed Ceramics By Caroline Erb
I was a frightened boy who became familiar with doubt and the statement of alone. And I found love. My God, I found love. Here there is joy and a shining face in the middle of a community. Here there is a voice that does not shake or doubt its timbre or rage. Here there is a newfound bliss that makes me ache because that boy never thought he would have that. Here there is light and sunshine and laughter and words. Here my family became too many to count. Here my victories were accidental and joyous. But I'm not "here" anymore. I'm not there. What is a word for goodbye to a place that made you? What is the opposite of scorched earth tactics? This feeling.
Illustrated Collector Cups By Glass Artist Joe Hobbs
Northwest Florida Summer A Haiku By A.S. Miller Hot. Humid. Summer. Rain falls. Cool. Welcome respite. Clouds part. Sun shines. Again.
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What happened to the celebration of rainbows Of the personification of diversity of self Diverging cultures seen as the tools of prosperity of human reflection Within this resolution We find Revolution Of equity of laws and man and woah man As he and she and they We return To rejoice The flow of divergence we rediscover The beauty in the journey To drive toward Balance of harmony Within the democracy And process, we build We emerge on the flip side Together Stepping with Black Panther precision Shared knowledge uncloaked from the structural guise of "tolerance" We don't celebrate tolerance We evolve to equity No less Back me up… The structure a disguise We rise To open third eyes So one can worship the sun We look to it's core Locating power centers Where you'll find us Planting seeds for the people she says I see them in the senses Done squinting Ready to find my place without losing Revolution of spirit Propping each other's fists when heavy Public enemies no more Strength in voices while we meld to raise speech We embody Revolution They've had it up to here As one we boost them on shoulders So they can peep the path The choice The singular thing we leave them Get up Get on Or get out We are the base AND the pinnacle Success we celebrate in the shedding of theory Of DNA training we identify and release The crabs in the bucket thought that through Buckets tip on their side with the weight of uplifting One another Top heavy we overstand We race To freedom To prosperity To Revolution
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I wonder what you'll be like By Ryan Eaton I hope you get more of the best of us than the worst of us I hope you're happy I hope you learn to manage sadness I hope you're excited I hope you don't let anxiety win I hope you're always ready for adventure I hope you learn how to get yourself out of a jam I hope you're kind When you can't be I hope you figure out why I hope you find love I hope you learn from heartache I hope we do enough to get you ready I love you already and I can't wait to meet you.
Common Unsurety Lifts
Photo By Hunter Morrison
By Ofelia Tess Doubt of worth somedays snakes it's grass Coils me dormant, lungless while it grounds sprouting seed Your hands uproot the soil Halting leaves of walled trees Prying scales from waist and cheek I see Your eyes surround me Finding focus within loving me Oh, more than enough to remind A life to smirk back at hard times I fall into your arms As you fall in to mine
Tongue and Groove By Pat Meusel I touch up the blue of This shotgun house The tongue and groove of Solid heart pine
Surrounder / Photo By Talera Bain
A nail bent over Hammered flat into a Gouge of a crack Filled with a Century of paint And these planks down below me Where a blacksmith probably Plodded to bed And a boat captain mighta Fallen down drunk But most definitely where Lola Miller danced After kissing her groom In 1919 Their stories discovered in Yellowed directories Newspapers clipped Tall tales from neighbors And old charred floors The tongue and groove of These walls and this roof A long list of regulars Leaving their clues "Waiting Room"/ Digital Art By Talbur August 4, 2022
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Seeing Red By Dakota Parks
Print Design By Isaiah Waters
The Covenant of Night and Day By Sarah Jane Brock it lies between the blaze of day and the chill of night where twilight washes in and fills the middle distance heralding the spirits to inspire flora and fauna alike to flight and the great chain of being dances to the hunt for existence space and time come into a state of flux as the veil before us thins and opportunity arrives as a shining beacon of hope creeping above the sea sol finds rest while luna rises, where balance is found through losses and wins where our human sins and triumphs lay bare as a fallen tree twilight embraces every living being as Spirit knocks and enters humbled to our knees, and delivered through our cries in this swelling of crescendo lives a whisper from our ancestors where undying love is promised and our tears are yet again mercifully dried
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Her face is crimson, spaghetti sauce and strawberry purée Pollocked across both cheeks highchair smeared with baby handprints like a talcum-covered car bumper pushed in neutral by tiny phantom hands across Crybaby Bridge. The Texas newscaster steels her jaw, ruby red lips parsed, as she reports an 11-year-old survived by smearing her dead friend's blood across her face playing dead like a opossum while police twiddled thumbs and children smudged their final bloody palms against the linoleum floors crying out for their mothers My god, how I fear for her future— In Walmart, wire hangers are on clearance discarding corporate culpability formula aisles are still empty condoms and Plan B under lock and key, pharmacists deny birth control refills as women's bodies are dissected like a game of Operation Red states electrifying the scarlet nose of Cavity Sam as men poke and prod plucking those surgical tweezers between our organs stripping back the flesh of sovereignty— Less autonomy than a corpse consenting to organ donation. America slips into recession while less than 20 percent of women have access to paid maternity leave. 64 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck— Only 53 percent of Americans can handle a $500 emergency without worry. The average cost of an abortion is $500 before travel. In Ohio, legislators denied an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim, a child forced to carry a child before the blood of her first period a child forced to cross state lines for an abortion a child Uncle Sam, your hands are soiled Blood stained That accusatory finger pointed deflecting moral responsibility Our babies born addicted to fear of babies* America, when will our children be children again? *A line from Kaveh Akbar's poem, "The Palace."
Supercut Summer By William Mettlach
Drove into the slow motion summer Timeless and pure I took a snapshot Mismatched polaroids faded into winter Shall I catch you when you fall Our noses coddled from spring As I fly to the summer I promise To leave you the supercut inweekly.net