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This writing was accepted for publication in the
108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book

Respect Our Existence
or Expect Our Resistance

cc&d, v272
(the June 2017 issue - the 24 year anniversary issue)

You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:
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Respect Our Existence or Expect Our Resistance

Order this writing
in the issue book
Nothing
Lasts

the cc&d
May-August 2017
collection book
Nothing Lasts cc&d collectoin book get the 4 page
May-August 2017
cc&d magazine
issue collection
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On a Rainy Day
(the 2017 poetry, longer prose
& art collection anthology)
On a Rainy Day (2017 poetry, longer prose and art book) get the 298 page poem,
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On Small Talk

Natasha Hooper

It is universally known that small talk is the easiest way to fill in spaces.
Dream jobs, new cars, and weekend plans suddenly become important topics of interest in the midst of silent thoughts.
Some feel small talk is meaningless. Others feel it is a necessary distraction in awkward situations.
I hate small talk, but while I’m sitting in the break room of my workplace, minding my own business, my coworker feels the need to talk about something.
She feels uncomfortable in the quiet.
Feels the need to fill the air with her white noise.
She brings up the weather.
Drags the sun into the room without his permission.
Attempts to drag my voice in too.
She keeps her conversation light,
Does not ask me about death.
Or how it feels to keep evading it,
how it feels to still be a breathing brown shadow.
She mentions flowers, but does not speak about the blood that waters them.
She mentions trees, but does not ask if they are still being used as weapons somewhere.
She tells me she wants to spend the weekend chasing the horizon, to admire the way the sun seems to hang in the sky.
I think of how she will never know what it feels like to be chased, or to be hanging and burning with people gathering around to see.
I think about the night sky, how it becomes a black canvas littered with white stars.
How we all consider these stars beautiful, even when they are shooting.
I think about the morning, how it is always pushing the darkness of night out of the way, making more room for daylight, because blue skies matter too.
I think of how the sky wraps itself around the sun, holds it like a deity.
Holds it like a god that only belongs to the morning.
A god that runs away when the darkness comes around.
A god that does not sing spirituals in the voice of night.
My coworker keeps speaking. This time about a breeze. This time about soft sand between her toes. This time about laying out in the sun to work on her tan.
I think of how a breeze will never be strong enough to stop a bullet. Of how asphalt is never soft even when it is soaked in blood. Of how tanning has only ever made our melanin look more dangerous.
She asks me what I think of the weather.
And I want to tell her how much I hate small talk.
That my existence is much bigger and much smaller at the same time.
That they might kill me and few will want to fit me into a conversation.
That they might kill me and I will become an awkward pause.
That I might die and no one may speak about it, because the weather is a lot easier to wrap words around than death.
Than black death.
Than black woman death.
I want to tell her that I wish to leave this earth in hailstorm.
In sunset and tsunami.
In clear sky and flood.
I pray that my spirit cracks the sky in lightning, pray that the earth opens up to swallow my slain body whole, and I pray that the sun is there.
With all its rays and luminance and small conversation so that maybe
my memory
will be something
worth talking about.



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