Indira Allegra
SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER
Why should I be
bullied by December? Why should I lay still beneath the sweater of
black evenings wondering what is cold for? When July wears her
breasts like a fruit platter palms plated gold, pouring pink lemonade
into tall turquoise glasses. Her laughter clinks like ice melting
behind copper curtains of sweet tea spilling up from black women's
mouths. But it is winter, and there are no walls of wet heat to
walk through. There are no sidewalks glittering in the
afternoon waiting for sticky thighs and naked feet to remind them
how it felt to live like grass.
Yes, it is winter and I am laying beneath the heaviest
sweater wondering what is cold for. If not for that time when I
can no longer dress in yellow and winter's bruises begin to
darken and I become accustomed to the idea of dying.
Indira Allegra narrates images that combine historical
perspectives embedded in an emotional context. She was recently selected
to attend the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation writer's workshop, and
was the 2007 featured artist for the Eugene Poetry Slam in Eugene, Oregon.
She is hard of hearing and lives with PTSD and depression.
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