The pitter-patter of rain on my windowsill sounds like the ticking of a clock winding down to frigid temperatures, when the water droplets will freeze to dust and the countdown to Christmas commences.
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
Remember when we were young, playing on monkey bars? You held me up so I wouldn't slip, but I felt your eyes under my dress.
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
This world is beyond repair— mass shootings, divided politics, unchecked racism litter newsprint— I'm exhausted. People are selfish. If it doesn't benefit them— especially financially— why should they care, why would they sacrifice? We are all damned, awaiting the trumpet sound to trigger fire raining from the sky. I light a cigarette, take a drag, then exhale and flick ash onto the front-page headline: "POLICE LOOKING FOR SUSPECT IN ROAD RAGE SHOOTING THAT PUT NINE-YEAR-OLD IN HOSPITAL." People are beyond saving. How much longer will we watch the world burn before it's cleansed?
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
The morning after Thanksgiving I wake up craving leftover mac and cheese—only, we didn’t eat the traditional feast this year. Sure, there was turkey, but we chose corn chowder over mac, casserole over stuffing, yams baked rather than candied. But I have all the ingredients—the milk, the cheese, the elbows. No one has to know it’s not actually leftovers— only, the milk is low, so I add vegetable broth, and I’m all out of cheddar cheese, so the ricotta, pepper jack, and parmesan will have to do. The noodles are…the jumbo size. Did I bother to read the box? The cheese sauce looks way too soupy. I’ll add two beaten eggs and bake it in the oven at three hundred and fifty degrees for thirty minutes. It’ll taste…
ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING!
Well, at least I didn’t experiment on Thanksgiving.
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
In the cool dampness of the early morning fog, I think of you and wonder, does the mist on your cheek make you cry too?
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
If I died tonight, murdered in the false security of my own home, what would be your final memory of me? The phone calls you ignored? The text messages left unanswered? Will you remember all the times you thought me hysterical, accused me of nagging, overreacting? You could have been my savior from twenty miles away. Instead you are the accomplice, the accessory, worse than the killer himself. And the guilt will ride you like a camel's hump as you lie in bed and stare at my picture until your eyes become heavy and it seeps into your dreams, that one haunting question: What if I had only done something?
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
I'm stuffed like a bird football game watches me sleep leftovers for days
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
light of my life, rise with the sun, brighten my day— springtime comes early
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
Wake me up before you go, fill my mug with smooth dark roast. Dispatch calls. What's the ETA? Stay—Blame the COVID shipping delays.
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
If you don't like me, tell me. Don't give me a false sense of security, fly me out to paradise just to send me to hell battered and bruised. Sever this friendship before you sever my spine. Your smile is like the Cheshire Cat. You disappear while the grin remains, haunting me as I lie dying. Was it worth it to humiliate me, to record my final breaths, turn my naked body into a spectacle for digital eyes? You hate me—I know that. But judgment knocks on your door and counts the nights you have remaining. You can't go on lying. God brings what is done in darkness to light, and when that day comes, your sins will be exposed, and you, as in the parable of the rich man, will gaze up from eternal fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and scream for my Lazarus, for mercy, and I, shinning like the sun in the kingdom of the One who saved me from your betrayal, will look down upon your anguish and torment and repeat the words of my Father: Depart from me, workers of iniquity. I never knew you.
© 2022 Nortina Simmons
The story of Shanquilla Robinson is truly a heartbreaking one. There are too many stories of young women murdered by “friends” who secretly hated them. I hurt for her family. I pray they find peace and justice.
Nortina's Writing Inspiration Well 