BY DEMISTY D. BELLINGER
Voodoo Doll
She calls me her voodoo doll and sticks a sewing needle in the fattest part of my left breast. I am surprised at how much it hurts, how much it feels good, and wonder if there’s blood. “Hold still, now,” she says, “for it to work. Close your eyes and channel your energy through the needle.” She stabs another needle, this time, my right arm, the shoulder. How many more times she’ll jab me? How did we get here, me letting her pin cushion me? And who, I wondered, was she directing this pain to? Who was on the other side?
Zombied
I think I’m high, but I don’t remember smoking or drinking anything. I look in the mirror to check if my eyes are bloodshot and they’re not; they are typing-paper white. My skin is discolored with white powder and I can see my brown hues hidden beneath. I think: white face. I think: I must go pull the weeds, mow the lawn, take out the garbage, and cut the stems from the greens.
Read Me
The snake was disorienting. I kept my eyes on him (his name was Baby Legba), even as she wrapped him around me, erasing the negative energy, centering me. The snake and the fifty candles brought me somewhere else. I sat down, cross-legged on the floor, across from her. Her hazel eyes transported me. The bones, cowry shells, and crystals she shook hypnotized me. “Ask your question,” she said, “in your head.” Baby Legba hissed a whisper hiss then slithered away into a corner, coiled up. She threw the pieces in her hands onto the marked floor between us. The bones and crystals so polished, they collected all of the light from the fifty candles and from the fire of her hazel eyes.
Prayer
Before we go to bed, she feeds flower petals to a shrine. She gets on her knees and says The Lord’s Prayer, then reads her rosary. She sprinkles the room with blessed water. She asks me when I was going to pray and I shrugged. She cuts her eyes at me and says, “You have to live a spiritual life.” I say, “I believe in you.” She looks even angrier and begins to peel away her clothes. I follow suit and ask if she’ll still have me over. “Don’t be foolish,” she says.
Before Morning
in that liminal period when the moon is still setting and the sun is still rising, you are up sprinkling your deck with watered-down rum. I feel heavy and stay in your bed, watching the day changing out your window. Then, I remember Baby Legba, and I sit straight up. You come back to bed and smile at me. “He’s in a terrarium,” you say. “You’re safe. You’re always safe.” You kneel beside the mattress and say a silent prayer. I fall back to sleep and offer potential nightmares to the fading moonlight.
Sunday Morning
Before church, we eat a simple meal of grits and fried eggs. I cook. She prefers her egg poached and I prefer scrambled. We eat in silence. When she finishes, she asks me how I’m liking my visit. I don’t tell her that I would like to have sex with her. Instead, I ask, “Where was all this in college?” “Hidden,” she says. She doesn’t have to explain what I already know about hiding, about keeping secrets that you share with only yourself and those who came before you. This is the black girl magic we all inherently know, the gris-gris we intrinsically carry within ourselves, a protection we depend on.
Before we go, she tells me, she will let herself be possessed. “It may look scary, but it won’t be. It may seem like a celebration, and it will be. Sort of. A couple of guys will be here soon.” And there isn’t a knock on the door, but an opening up of the door. Men with drums. She puts on more beads. The men begin pounding their instruments and singing. They move with the rhythm they create. She, too, sways, then dances. Her eyes go white. I start thinking about mowing the lawn and I start thinking about the needles. What had happened?
(Sunday Morning: Later)
A transformation. Sunday best and reserved demeanor. The singing is only of hymns. The rhythm only in melody. And be with you. And god be with you. Amen.
Sunday Night
After her rosary, she tells me that none of it is learned. “No one would teach me. Instead, I gleaned what I could from watching my grandmother and aunts. Mama wanted no part of it. And Daddy, well, he’s white. Nothing wrong with being white, but, well.” I reach out to her and take her hands. There is a place between all of this that Western sin doesn’t exist and I could kiss her. I could lie back and have her insert me with needles. Where I could feel the surprising heat of melting wax from prayer candles. But the burn isn’t really surprising, right? So why do I jump? Why do I flinch?
Monday
Again, a transformation. She’s in business casual and straightened hair. I’m packed and going back home to a husband who is as tired as cynicism. Tired as in: I’m tired of him. Tired as in: we’re tired together. Our children only interested in what is projected. I could show them the world in the sunlight, but they’d reach back to be inside. She pulls in front of my terminal entrance at the airport. “Life isn’t fun there,” I say. “My life ain’t fun, either. You only see the exciting parts.” I kiss her again, once more until next year. “God be with you,” she says. “Goodbye,” I say.
DeMisty D. Bellinger lives and teaches in Massachusetts. Her chapbook, Rubbing Elbows, is available at Finishing Line Press and a full-length collection is forthcoming in 2021 with Mason Jar Press. You can learn more about DeMisty at her website, http://demistybellinger.com.