By Tauwan Patterson
“‘Tis The Season!”
the holiday approaches nestling knocking seeking graciousness in spite of whatever viciousness said I’M HERE! . . . yesterday, today, this year NOT TODAY, SATAN! right?
Festivus
with a tremble of the lips and a rumble in the throat i felt it comin’ for quite some time now knew, you are in need of a good cry thru the wall adjacent, joy and laughter for this friday, december twenty-fourth togetherness poppin’ off all around this eve he sits alone at the table this friday he ignores the invites sittin’ in the company of a five episode series on the early onslaught of AIDS got me in my feelings heavy be this head weighted down sobbin’ snifflin’ heavin’ lettin’ the sadness come back to life and for a minute i think dial it down no need to compete with the surrounding holiday cheer but the time has come this here my moment this here be my christmas eve so i let my lips rattle like an aftershock sing a little of that opened mouth wail suddenly everybody hurts plays shaking me into silence adding five minutes and fifty-five seconds to me truly living that good cry gifted onto me fully unwrapped
Hailing from South Central, Los Angeles, Tauwan Patterson is a Black + Queer Poet and recent graduate of the MFA Creative Writing Program at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina. His work has recently appeared in the inaugural edition of the online literary magazine Cool Beans Lit and 3rd Wednesday Magazine, and will also appear in the forthcoming Moonstone Arts Center anthology Which Side Are You On?!, the Winter Issue of Rise Up Review, Porkbelly Press’ Love Me, Love My Belly zine, Muse-Pie Press’ Shot Glass Issue #41, and the Rising Phoenix Review. With his poetry Tauwan aims to, in the words of the great Poet and Thinker Marcus Jackson, announce his freedom and presence. Making a sound that echoes in the end that says Tauwan Patterson. No more. No less.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 