who we are when we are not afraid

BY mandy osuji, yale ’26

1.

some day in February 

in fourth grade art class

the PA announcement hurls us tornado-warning to the floor

skittering beneath our handiwork

clustered and faintly afraid

I end up on my knees so I pray anyway

lips barely parting

12 minutes later we emerge intact

go back to our imitations

my knees dimpled but the same

unfettered I forget the muttered prayer

the moment of a bent thing caught

I resume coloring-in my scribbled bird or dog or cat

the quiet receded

2.

my eyes cut night seismic and fleeting

I buck, shedding the thrill

but I can smell the smoke on me

the way it coils in on itself

I’ve scared myself raw,

fingers wind-chapped in the waiting

the fear whittles me ashamed

its taut glare unstrung

I gauge the dimensions of forgiveness

wonder if regret can’t help but spit back

if tamped-down secrets have nowhere to go but the water

curled up cocooned in the belly of dark

lingering there 

3.

today it is spring—or rather, it should be

blooms unearth themselves bony and breathless

as if they know they are fleeting

excavation turned symphony

everything is budding in the mud

a cacophony of brown and yet-to-be

of shoots and watered soil

I bury my hands in the dirt

grab the center of the earth

apple core wilted and torn

still life fluttering awake

just the long grass at my knees

and the smell of smoke fading

4.

this continuous introduction

soul tilting cattail towards you

towards palms tumbled clean 

bark-stripped and sea foam new

long strides and memory crumble into salt

night silts into daybreak

as ransom unsticks from the roof of my mouth

knees twine river and the water stands still

easing me into surrender