Menagerie at Midnight

Sunrise Symphony

The Lawdy’s Prayer

Lawdy Mama (1969) - Barkley L. Hendricks

Our Mama, who art in heaven

I hope you love what you see

when you look back at me

draped in sins not yet forgiven

Dearest Mama, hallowed be thy name

There’s just nothing left,

save for you and I, smeared

and haloed in gleaming golden paint

O’ Lawdy Mama, thy kingdom come

You’re untouched, but I’m tarnished

And I want what you are

to be perfect and golden and Great

Amen.

God is Real (and she sat next to me in french class)

Oh, praise the Lord, no

angels peeked over my shoulder

and saw me looking at you

a little in love and a little lost

What’s the deal with lesbians?

(i dunno, sweetheart, i’m asking you)

And I want you to have all the answers,

but I don’t think I can hear them

But sitting next to you at 10:27

on a Wednesday morning 

was one of my favorite

favorite times of the week

I remember leaning

shoulder to shoulder,

and I tried to give you space,

but you didn’t seem to want it

And when our time was up,

the first thing I thought of

was losing the chance to watch your lips

(so… so… close)

And I guess this is a little sad,

but I kinda loved

that chunk of my heart

I offered to you

You gave me yours,

we took our fill

(small as it was)

and let it go

…let it go.

Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit (1939) - Billie Holiday

And when we stand still

So too does the shadow

Faithful to a fault,

following footstep to footstep

Black as the night,

picking clouds of cotton

white strange fruit plucked from

the boughs of poplar trees

But when the sun hangs still,

the shadow flies free

when the high noon chimes,

just a minute of eclipse

Free like daylight,

humming hymns of paradise 

lost strange fruit flung from

the boughs of poplar tree

Keep your shadows close

for they will slip away

when the time is right

and the sun hangs like

High Noose.

The Cherry of Your Cigarette

To the men of thorns

malnourished egos and

hot swagger

To the ladies yet unbroken

hiccupping stars with

gasoline-soaked kisses

Fill the cocksure gaps 

in your teeth with firelight

cough out the smoke as

it tears you apart

Let the embers choke out

the cherry of your cigarette

and whatever else is left of you

if anything at all

Twilight Requiem

for the art

i don’t do this shit for the art of it y’know

it’s just me and my fingers and

these blown out scraps of my heart

but i’m just burning up with anguish

i’m crying now, dripping starlight

because that stupid whore in the mirror

thinks they’re worth everybody’s Love, 

when they aren’t anybody’s muse

i’m not doing this shit for the art of it

i’m doing it because i need to write it down

i’m doing it because i don’t deserve to hate myself

i don’t deserve to Love myself

i think i’m going to go cry now

and that will make me feel worse

because i’m not pretty and skinny

no “hello nurse”

i Love the skin i’m in

i have to i have to i have to

i wouldn’t be able to take the torture

of wanting to be someone else enough to 

die

i don’t want to die

i promise

please don’t tell my therapist

promise me

i guess i am doing this shit for the art of it

the art of forcing myself to Love the stupid bitch in the mirror

the art of tricking everyone into thinking they Love me

the art of thinking they Love me

The Next Morning

Typed in the dark with shaking, fat fingers

Sloppy yet still... stylish?

no punctuation or capital letters

I guess I simply was not in the state.

Why did you start crying twice?

And of course, crying makes it worse, idiot.

Why don't you just Shut Your Mouth?

Hop off that high horse, whore!

Maybe I should keep a pen clenched in my fist 

when I 

drive 

make dinner

buy groceries

eat anything

look at myself in the mirror 

sob.

And I'll tell my therapist about it next week 

…promise.

sour to the taste

there’s sour sugar sawdust on my fingertips and

unsweetened nightshade syrup leaking from my lips

dripping down my breasts, my heart, my hips

painted in sharp swirls, a war cry warning

choke on my saccharine sacrament,

and let its juice flow from my mouth

violent violet love vomited upon you

take your fill of me, for it will be final

i’m not something to savor

i’m sour to the taste

Liquid Cowardice

I wore that black dress

(you know the one)

because I hoped you

would like to take it off.

That you would be interested

in what’s underneath

(that you would be interested at all).

I said I liked your lipstick,

but I don’t think I could pull it off.

I want to wear it anyways

(but I knew I couldn’t pull it off).

You left me tongue-tied

(wanted to tie tongues)

Despite the liquid courage in my chest,

I’m just cowardice in a black dress.

drive me to the moon

i wanted to make a comet

out of my car

burning like angels and

lost like my breath

i wanted to be the heavenly bodies

out of my reach

send them careening to hellfire

and crashing like cosmic marbles

i wanted to destroy the void made

out of my head

i wanted to achieve orbit

out of my world

hanging on loose, and leaning far

out of my car

blowing kisses bloodsoaked

out of my mirrors

out to the moon

but i stayed on the ground

and made it home despite

wanting to craft a coffin

out of my car

Violent Night

I am an Unkindness

with this roughhewn heart

and its cruel clawed fingers

I’ve been gilt in gentleness

to atone for a soul

carved in cast iron

sculpted from marble

and crowned in diamonds

a silk-wrapped smile cradling 

this Unkindness.

I want to rage and shatter

and rend and destroy

all the soft things

I’ve made for myself.

But it’s five in the morning, and I still have not slept.

Letter to the Last Dandelion

To the last dandelion I saw before the cold crept in, making room for itself in my bed, 

sprouted amongst browning grass and burning autumnal leaves, sticking out like a siren

 singing of a summer long gone,

It’s winter when I think of you now. The last bastion of brightness, of warmth, 

of goldenrod godliness, and of that time right then. When I didn’t think of ever-encroaching

darkness, of frigid winter, of snowdrop sadness, and all the times since then.

But I remember you, and I’ll see you next summer.

Pater Rex

Long Live the King

may he rest, cocooned in gold

lain to rest in the shade,

and remembered with every breath

Long Live the King

may he rest, burnished like bronze

by the grace of the sun,

unforgotten by the skies

Long Live the King,

may he rest, entombed in glass

that weathers and warps with time

like the moon’s eyes upon us

Long Live the King,

may he rest in peace

Long Live the Rest,

now left with the pieces

sweet (but not the same)

i wonder how much you think of Him

you were just so small; i was too

i don’t think i was good enough

but i think we’re golden now

good kids, growing regardless

and you’re starting to look a lot

like Him

(but not the same)

in the shape of your face

and the sea of your laughter

and i see Him 

when you smile

and that’s… sweet

(but not the same)

Hail the King

(but not the same)

ares and aphrodite are lovers

and loving myself is an act of violence

blood-stained fingers caressing my skin

thousands died for this act of defiance

all to earn the right to be jocelyn

and there was no great sacrifice

only the gnawing hunger of a girl judged

all the clawing anger at the doors of paradise

all to earn the right to be beloved

and there was no swift victory

love was the warmaster’s blade

whet with the guiles of a girl’s trickery

all to learn the right to be unashamed

but the war is not yet over, attrition as it is

but to love is to bleed, retribution all the same

Hymn of the Necromancer

Raise me from the dead– an unholy abomination

carved from rotting flesh, rigor mortis in repose

I’m just a body without a soul,

branded black by the cruel finger of Death

And I’ve flayed open my heart, left my carcass upon your altar,

yet you still feel nothing, unmoved my godless gospel

Despite your insistence, I’m hellbent on iridescence

to burn and gleam something holy,

like a shooting star carving a scar into the sky

I’ll be loved. 

I’ll be adored. 

I will be exalted.

Midnight Gospel

Everloving

I used to love you like dawn rising

ever approaching,

grass dew wet in morning light

stretching across the sky-stained pink

like the walls of my nursery

I love you like whipped summer showers

ever lasting,

afternoon grey hazy as storms streamed in

reigning like a roiling thunderhead

like the dark of my closet

And when silver-soaked night falls,

ever loving,

pray the moon and stars will be kind to us at last.

singing through our souls, shaking

like the liquid gold in my veins

I used to love you like morning, but the day marches on

I still love you like midnight, and a child is grown

Sunset Royal

The streetlights herald the break of the dusk like trumpeters exalting in the presence of royalty.

A faint buzzing fills the air as the nighttime choir croons the song of cicadas and crickets.

 There’s still a light on at home. Inside it’s still, swaddled in shadows and draped in darkness,

 empty with nobody home. It’s silent, entombed in stillness and cocooned in quiet, empty with

 nobody home. It’s lonely, frigid in absence and frozen in time, empty with nobody home.

But there’s a light on.

I left the light on for you. 

Come home safe to me.

For the Records

I think it’s plain to say, but I’m not always doing well. I persist because I must, and if I stop, I 

will stop. I used to set lofty goals, aiming for the stars in my head, but it gets exhausting when

you’re always stretching, always reaching for something bigger.

So now I’m starting small. I’ll take my meds, I’ll tell my friends I love them, I’ll keep writing till

they rip the pen from my hand, and I’m going to buy a record player.

I was listening to a song, pink + white by Frank Ocean, in the car with my friends, wind

 streaming through the windows and chilling my heated skin. That song made me so happy, so

grateful to have heard it, and I had a thought about a little goal, one thing I want just for myself.

Not to be supported by my friends, or to be admired by my brother, or to be loved by my mother.

I’m going to buy a record player. To submerge myself in the sounds of my favorite artists, Bell

Biv Devoe, Tyler the Creator, and Suzanne Sheer, all their melodies making me feel giddy and

golden or joyfully subdued and silver, all the while singing for myself. I want to cradle the songs

keeping me afloat close to my heart, and to be safe to sing for myself and myself alone. 

I’m going to buy a record player.

And I’ll aim for the records too.

And The World Will Move With Music 

Burn in the Glory

of the Light of Providence

And I will yearn the suffering

of flagellation Resplendent

Rejoice in my Divinity

and I will be Angelic

Honest in my unholiness

and Heavenly in my triumph

And when I fall, I’ll be 

heralded by the resplendent

raucous choir crying out the

Last Refrain of the Midnight Gospel

About the Author

Jocelyn Royal is a senior Biology major with a minor in Creative Writing, and they have never been happier than to get to partake in this creative endeavor. They've previously been published in Quiddity, Phantasm, and The Machine Mag, and they're hopeful that they'll be able to continue writing even after they graduate.