Melaina Williams | Just One More Day and Other Poems

Just One More Day and Other Poems

By Melaina Williams

Just One More Day

Right when I’ve decided I want my nipples back, a lightning bolt charges us together.

I draw her close as she soothes her ever-changing gums. She gets only a hint of the milk and honey once fowing from her promised land, her blessed assurance mama is hers.

No matter how long her legs grow, how many phonetic letters she learns and fngers she counts, this is where she belongs.

My little brother, early adolescent boy, always would fnd the space to curl up at our mother’s breasts.

My mother’s arms wrapped around him like a time portal, swaying his full body just enough to bring her back to when she could pick him up like a beloved doll.

Me, in my middle child pubescent fury, had to protest Get off of her! Wrestling him. Tugging, pulling, pushing. They both laughing. A ritual of sorts.

I had convinced myself we were too old. That he as I, should grow up. But just a few tugs past my protest was the longing to be there too wrapped in her arms, resting my head at the breast I once knew.

So as my baby’s legs dangle and she pops on and off my nipples to make some morning conversation maybe about a dream, plans for the park Or a bone to pick

I decide to give it another day. Just one more day. Always just one more day . . .

A Pandemic Story

I am

raising a child, loving deeply a husband, washing myself with gentleness, mourning cousins, an aunt and a leader, ordering food and cooking food with swells of garlic as love, praying loudly, keeping journal after journal after journal, checking on friends and allowing them to check on me, making mistakes, dancing with my daughter, working in the world, visiting the world in masks, feeding the little soul in my womb, watching my mother and father face time with morning walks, taking my own walks to remind myself what outside smells like, sitting at the grace table (six women taught me this act), teaching the ABC’s and relearning the joy they bring through the eyes of a 20 month old who squills as B wiggles on the screen, posting pics and deleting apps, getting weary, fghting with everything I’ve got and resting with the same everything, choosing my laugh my quiet, my courage, my visions, my creative, my tears, my screams, my song, my faith, my woman

in a pandemic.

Writing my story, to the end.

Gentle Warriors

There’s never been a good time to have a child; to nurse her under tear gas or rest under the tree whose branches are strong enough to bear strange fruit.

There’s never been a good time to have a child; denied a classroom or dispersed in one by bullets.

There’s never been a good time to have a child; to feverishly wait at the mailbox for relief or the weekly food line amidst the noonday heat.

But yet they are here, born and christened under gunfre, barb wire swords and guns, in famine and refuge.

Born in sorrow or joy but always the hope, whether of parent or of the Sky.

The hope, the soft hand audacious cry, clay skull and marble eyes,

the little things that scare the king who decrees they all die

but those gentle warriors continue to multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply . . .

MELAINA WILLIAMS is a poet, playwright, singer/songwriter from Inglewood California. She fnds great joy in connecting with people of all backgrounds through creative arts, especially creative writing. Melaina studied Creative Writing and Theatre at USC. Her book of poetry, “Bless Your Sweet Bones” was published by the historical World Stage Press in Leimert Park. She also penned, “The Humble Commode” a chapbook. She currently lives in Los Angeles and spends her days writing and bingewatching Cocomelon with her daughter.

Engage with Melaina’s Story:

Tell your pandemic story. Begin with “I am” . . . .