"Southern Crucifix" by Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra

These colors don’t run, which is to say

this criss-crossed flag,

this faux heritage,

this emblem of pride,

white superiority

seems to mean something

to your grandfather, the man who

refused to spare the rod

nor spoil your father,

who in turn

sold you the bill

of inherited trauma, high cholesterol, misogyny.

All these emotional debts and

miseries shared, revered,

all in the name of

some form of twisted tradition.

These colors don’t run except

for the lives

of my partners, my beautiful sons, my beloved brown cousins as we run from

you, your stepdaddy, and fathers.

Because familial ties

bound and conscripted you

to stay watching, and stay conditioned

to be something–anything as long as it was the same

as they are.

History wound deep through

this hate, this tree built on

pain, stolen lands, genetic memories. Noose slug low enough to rub raw our necks, I can feel your blood ebb as you see me, forever edging closer. You hoist the flag and party line in haste.

Fires travel across California,

history books,

family folklore from

Grandmama too

dotted with white crosses,

the flames lick the sky,

I see you, I see you, I see you.

These colors don’t run

except when the blood of

my loved ones is visible.

That is to say, their colors—

insides turned out,

red in the streets

of your blue-blooded,

white-hooded,

All Lives Matter,

thin blue line,

strange Southern flag waving in the

polluted winds of backwards racial rhetoric. No darlin, it seeps.

These colors don’t run, you say,

but to me, these colors,

these stripes of indignity,

simply cannot further stay.

Melissa Wabnitz Pumayugra (She/Her) is a writer based out of central Texas who enjoys a great tall tale and a medium iced coffee. Her work centers around identity, cultural phenomena, and embracing the past. Her photography and writing can be found on twitter (mel_the_puma) and in Blood Orange Review, You Might Need to Hear This, Oklahoma Today, Emerson Review, Hobart and many other obscure publications scattered throughout the globe.