Alicia Cole is a writer and artist in Huntsville, AL. She's an Irish-American, autistic/dyscalculic/twice-exceptional, MAD, bisexual, genderfluid, survivor woman (she/her/one/Mr.), who is an alternative spiritual practitioner. Her poetry has recently appeared in Reckoning, isacoustic*, Writing In A Woman's Voice, and NILVX. She's a studio artist at InsideOut Studio at Lowe Mill, a studio for special needs adults, and she attends Merrimack Hall, a performing arts school for special needs adults and children/youth. She lives with her husband, four animals, some plants, and loves coffee, tea, and claw machines. Her favorite holiday is Halloween.
_________________________________
Unbind your soul
I wonder at the rope.
One thread: the sheep
grazing and the pen.
One thread: something dropped
in the classroom.
One thread: the swift hand
of revolution.
You cannot take the man
from the man just as you
cannot take the rope
from the rope.
I wonder what he’s doing
and if everything is sweet,
the great gulps of eternal
darkness where all is
infinitely light especially
the pinprick of reminders.
I would like to hold his hands,
tell him death isn’t everything,
perhaps it would have been easier
to let them live after all.
It is not all the fuss with the U.S.
(which is not fuss, do not stone
me, I respect the dead), but the women,
the children that made Iraq
cry out.
Remember: death isn’t everything.
He wrote poetry in the end.
will not tremble before the beast?