The Horror . . . The Horror

Antoinette F. Winstead

October 28, 2020

I need not peruse the pages of Lovecraft or Poe

to experience the chills of terror 

in their fictionalized worlds.

I need only turn on the television 

to witness daily images of real-life horror

ones with no happy resolution 

of rescue or justice.

The reality of sanctioned murder 

assaults me every day

and I am helpless to intervene, 

for fear it will be me next to feel 

a barrage of bullets pierce my body 

while I sleep

or knee pressed into my neck 

until I expire, unable to breathe

while Proud Boys and Aryans 

gather about their computers

breathless with glee as they watch in comfort

another Twenty-First Century lynching 

replayed ad nauseum

 in slow-motion and freeze frame

so they can enjoy each agonized final moment

of yet another disposable black body.

And what have I to combat a world set against me

where some claim understanding,

yet when the cameras turn off

go back to their everyday middle-class living,

forgetting the injustice 

until another black body lays sprawled

inhumanely for all to ogle in pornographic relief

some to mourn, others to sing the victor’s song?

How can I possibly survive the horror,

anxious that the next person 

displayed in living color 

will be father, brother, uncle, cousin?

I have no escape from the bombardment, 

cannot merely close a book and be done with it.

This is the world I must live in,

one that sees me as either victim or criminal,

and all I have at my disposal is a paper ballot.

To vote is to make me equal

with those who readily dismiss me,

think me unworthy of a citizen’s privilege.

But it is my only recourse, 

won in hard battle 

by those of all gender and ethnicity

who risked torture and murder 

for an unknown future.

So I, in silent revolt, slip ballot into box,

praying the horror to end, justice to be done, 

trusting that I am not the only one 

to feel the agony and hopelessness 

of my fellow Americans.

I anticipate a miraculous resolution, 

an intervention of the gods,

all the while preparing 

for the nightmare to continue

for those like me, 

disenfranchised, marginalized 

in a country 

that claims liberty and justice 

for all its citizens,

unless they resemble me.

Antoinette F. Winstead, a poet, playwright, director, and actor, teaches film and theater courses at Our Lady of the Lake University where she’s a tenured full-Professor, and serves as the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Program Head for the Mass Communication and Drama programs.