Author's CWs: blood, colonialism, and implied genocide.
1492
this is why we stand behind velvet-roped stanchions
feet stomped hard against ancient stone floors,
lest they run restless through the palace halls of the alcázar de colón
colón, colony, colonizer— what gall needed to father the eponym
and with it mark the death of those who had no choice but hear it
how i longed to touch it all— the heavy wood of their beds,
the silver cutlery displayed in polished glass cases
how i longed to smash their every painted plate on the ground
and tread barefoot over their remains, let my blood taint
their walls and draw my footsteps on their winding steps;
let me chart the paths of all the ghosts that roam quisqueya
upon their tapestries, in the crimson blood that soaks our island.
Charlie D’Aniello (they/he) is a Latinx, trans & queer, neurodivergent author and literature nerd. They are featured or forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, HOLYFLEA!, Querencia, Tealight Press, Poetically Magazine, Wrongdoing Magazine and others. They wrote the novel The One and the Other, and are eic at warning lines magazine. Twitter: @beelzebadger / @warninglines.