These poems are published connected to the partnership between the Mid-Atlantic Review and Howard University and a recent event for the Howard community.

The Guide (the flowers)

First, you’ll need to be sightless
Completely
Blind to all that they tell you there is to see
Home to countless combative
Weary Black souls
Pitiful withered plants
They lose the plumpness of their petals
In the light
And can only grow in the dark
All that you are
An infirm flower planted only to wilt
Inevitably
Don’t subscribe to their vision
See all that’s full and alive
In the place you were made to blossom

Then, you’ll need a safe space
To flourish of course
The dense backgrounds that have kept their shape through
the changing years
It holds a spacious garage
that the stray cats and dogs
drag their starving bodies at night
to force their beings to accept
a new form of home
That feeds them
The fences that surround it
make faces behind
the many Cadillacs, trucks, and Chevys
that have backed into them
It holds them in place
A bedroom
that seems to recognize you
more than you
It contains a singular closet
that you used to hide from the sun
to keep the monsters from creeping in
The fabricated ones from fairytale storybooks
And the real ones from family photos

Your base
The neighborhoods
Within the city
The City
The soil
Aged trees that carry the strength of a herd of bulls
It towers over your stalk
Made you strong
The digestible downtown
They built around you
Made it look like you were never made to fit in it
Yet you push through the concrete
The crystal water lakes that they pollute
Still love to soak in the pores
of your black stem
This is where we raise our kin
Grow our field
Your safe haven
Your city
Our city
No matter how hard they try it’ll always be
Our city
They’ll never stop trying
To change it for them
Stealing the soil
Digging you out of your home
That feeds you
Covers you
And keeps you in place

Because of that
Finally, you’ll have to love it
Take your broken sepals and pick your petals off the ground to see
What you’re grown to see
Look around at the rough wind that keeps the air in your lungs
It’ll never hurt you
It’ll always give you
The nutrients you need
So love it
And keep loving
And keep loving
And keep loving
And keep loving
Adore it all
And all you are
That’s the only way to preserve
The only way to keep what’s yours
To kiss every flaw of the rigid concretes
We arose from
Reassure the staggered buildings
That stand with self-pity
And abandonment
We shall light and fill
Hug every seed that can’t sprout in public institutes
Water the flowers that be
Love them first and most
See only this
To keep the magic from them
To make it better for us

Canopy Birds: Self Portrait

I repeatedly fidgeted behind her desk
As she asked me the million-dollar question
The one any therapist would ask in an intro meeting
Her request was for me to describe who I am
Who I believed myself to be

As someone who’s been a patient all their life
I saw it coming
Yet I was still terribly unprepared to answer
The problem was every time I thought I had an accurate answer to this question
Others’ perception of me redirected my self-image
Towards another direction
I believed I was a mature and stable individual
TI thought with my head instead of my heart
Till one day in the kitchen along with many other vulnerable conversations
My brother told me my heavy heart was filled with
Too much love

So much love that it caused an imbalance in my brain
Which leads to my impulsivity
My foolish tolerance
My hopeless romantic fantasies
My overthinking and anxiety
These are the same flaws my mother often criticizes
So I’m not the brave, secure person I thought I was either
Even my dreams show me something different
Who I really am
A bird of the wildest canopy
That’s the picture that my thoughts paint
With great discernment
No matter how much praise I receive
About the uniqueness of my underwings
Or the sight of my charming crown
I don’t see the beauty
I don’t feel that I’m worthy enough
To soar alongside the conquering, clear clouds
Made to witness me and who I wish to be
All I know how to do is to gawk at the world below
Never truly living in it

I wasn’t there for you when your grandfather died
I watched from afar as you let your wounds bleed out
Through your open, soggy eyes
I guess I couldn’t bring myself to fly far enough to you
Ironically, sometimes I fly too far to the other side
Like when I speak the lie “I love you” to many
Knowing my body is never ready
To push those words out into the forefront for them to hear

I’m sorry I pushed you too
To no longer wanting to be close to me
I guess they were right about who I am
I guess I’ll always be someone in over their head
Making decisions too big compared to my actual capabilities
Relying on fat to fuel my unsteady, extensive flights
Led by my anchor of a heart
Making waste of my hollow bones
To be able to glide

Only to crash into what I thought was the perfect destination
I am not who I thought I was
Who I always begin to think I am
So for now
I’ll remain on top of the tallest tree
Hiding in my safe habitat of comfortability
Never making it down to the surface
With the rest of the world

Alana McDonald is a freshman at Howard University from Detroit, Michigan. Always a writer in various forms, her first heartbreak inspired her first poem. She has since emerged herself in poetry through performance poetry, and hosting and attending poetry workshops.

Featured image in this post is: Pattanaik, Indian Bulbul at the top of a canopy. MET DP-401-001 license via creative commons, via Wikimedia Commons