by Vanessa Maki Uliya Kurilova when the trauma finds me / in my dreams / & starts stalking me / waiting to pounce / with razor fingers / & a chesire cat grin / i feel like i’ll never / escape / that i’ll disappear / even when i lay my head down / to rest / but then i remember / that i’m into survival / even when i’m tired of just surviving / & i won’t wait for someone / to wake me up / to save me / to cut the umbilical cord of trauma / til it reanimates / to pick me up / & ca

by Vanessa Maki Matt Seymour take a moment & think of the caterpillars & how they must look forward to becoming butterflies. they go from one stage to the next & when they molt for the first time their old skin is gone their body transforms & then they become an adult butterfly. picture me as a butterfly little blk butterfly never reaching metamorphosis never molting never being able to fly away Vanessa Maki is a queer writer/author, visual artist & blk feminist whose work h