Category: Audio Poem

Coupling of a Different Kind

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Photo by Mpho Maponyane on Unsplash
Coupling of a Different Kind

I’m the person who makes her feel better.
and it’s light and airy and innocent …
there are days that pummel her
into submission, and I sense them.
I am ready with a “Hey, are you okay?”
and the response is an honest one — 
one that lets me know, she’s holding 
on, too.
“I am trying to be.”

I know that place.
I live in that place more than
I care to admit,
that place is a place where
we find ourselves lost and
wandering aimlessly through
time and actions, and if anyone
is available to save us, we’ll
run straight to them.

she doesn’t need saving, though.
she needs a listener.
I listen. 
I crack jokes.
I talk about the things in life
that make no sense and we agree
as we work and she monitors
my time on calls and I shift
from one aspect of work to another.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” I say. how we can
struggle together and open up
long enough to let the other in?
she agrees. we can chat for
hours about things that crush us.

I know where she’s been. 
I know how I got through it,
how I am getting through it, and
we’re both walking different paths,
but it feels like our destinations
aren’t too far from one another.
I offer her a ride.

“Since we’re headed in the same direction.”

there was a wall there — there was.
I have always had a knack for chipping
away at them and sliding through 
undetected, and before you know it,
one’s bare before me — their past becoming
one with mine.

it is an amazing thing to see someone
walk away from themselves, pull up
a seat next to another ailing heart,
and release like there will be no tomorrow.
she’s so beautiful when she’s fragile.
she’s even more so when she’s strong.

the hard exterior comes through
on days when patients have gotten
their full fill of long hold times and
the glitches of shoddy software can 
eat through the cores of our patience.
I can see her falter — lose her sense of peace.

And I step in — “Are you going to make it?”

a simple question returns a simple answer.
and we move on from that place
that can turn into darkness if
I do not send enough light, but I do.
and she waits for it.

and even when my darkest days
salsa right before me, I can 
remove my stilettos, slip my
gown over my head, sling my 
jewelry across the room, and
invite her to get naked with me.

and there in the most silent
of silences, we stand — free 
of inhibitions, wary no more, 
aware that whatever else may come,
we have the tools to
conquer it.

Originally published in Intimately Intricate via Medium.

I Think of You Often, but Even More Now

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An audio lamentation

Photo by Tess WB on Unsplash
I Think of You Often, but Even More Now

I think of you often, but even 
more now, and maybe it’s because
it’s Autumn — the season when I’m
at my loneliest.
I hate the term, “deceased.”
I am still trying on the best way
to tell people about you in the 
past tense.

How can I?
Why would I even want to?
It’s a necessary evil, though.
“My late cousin …”
“My cousin who died 
earlier this year.”

I hate all of these ways
of saying you’re no longer 
here with us, and none of them
will make me miss
you any less.
So, what’s the point?

October had already been
a struggle-month for me.
I am urging myself to see
it as a month of celebration — you
were born during this month;
a gift to this world full of
nonsense and hatred.

However, as it is, these feelings
King Kong me, often out of 
nowhere, and it takes everything
I have in me to get back to
some semblance of normal.

I tell people, “I am good.”
Because I will be, eventually.
I hate filling their ears with my
off-and-on depression and 
medically diagnosed “adjustment disorder.”
I am a bag lady, carrying these 
things with me, unable to unpack — not
right now. Not just yet.

But I am trying.

At every turn of every day,
I see your smiling face.
I hear the joyfulness of your laughter.
I remember your meaningful embrace.

I always felt loved.
I always knew love existed through you.

I never had to question it.

And as time continues on 
in the way it typically does,
I feel like I’m being Mister’d into
becoming Celie who lost Nettie,
and the pain of the loss
rears its ugly head when
I least expect it.

I tick off another month of
therapy, another week of working
overtime, and another day of
just getting by.

Oh, I think of you often, but
even more now. 
Happy Birthday, Chrissy.
I say it to the air around me.
I whisper it to the clouds.
I swirl it around my tongue, and
blow it away from me as 
quickly as I can.

Happy Birthday, Chrissy.

*Author’s Note: Chrissy’s birthday is on October 12, 2022. There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think about her. She will forever be in my heart — often on my mind — and deeply rooted within my thoughts. I miss her. I truly miss her.

Thank you for reading — for listening. Peace.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium, on Sunday, October 09, 2022.

Dead in Akron

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An Audio Lamentation for Jayland Walker

Photo by bimo mentara on Unsplash
Dead in Akron by Tremaine L. Loadholt

90 shots fired?
90? 90? Are we sure?
Could be a little more
Could be a little less.
Who’s counting? When it’s
us, who’s counting?

You can’t be Black and young
and afraid of authorities in
America, it’s ammunition
for their ammunition, and
you will never win against
their numbers.

The system was designed to
hunt us like deer
draw our slain bodies from
the scene, and mount us
above their mantels;
prizes for their buddies
to gawk at.

There are checks being
cut for the officials
who can sell the most
bullshit in the darkest times
and the 1% has scrambled to
collect their due.

While we continue to
drop like flies, letters
lacking empathy are issued
to grieving families and lawyers
prepare themselves to seek
the highest monetary amount
possible as though money
resurrects the dead.

What do you do when
you’ve become numb to
the constant pain that settles
in your bones?
It’s there, you know it’s there
but now … it lingers
like a reminder, one you
claim as a task to get
rid of, yet …

You never will.

©2022 Tremaine L. Loadholt Originally published in soliloque via Medium.

“After a car chase, Walker got out of his car and a foot chase took place, police said. Officers believed Walker was reaching towards his waist and they ‘felt that Mr. Walker had turned and was motioning and moving into a firing position,’ Mylett said.

Walker, however, was not armed, Mylett said Sunday.” — Samantha Beecher & Dakin Andone, CNN News

NaPoWriMo#7

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Almost Little Sister


For Sarah

Almost Little Sister Tremaine L. Loadholt 2022 April 06

nearly four years ago, I
fell into the same path
as you, both of us wading our
way through the shores of
radiology imaging at a facility
known for its great service.
we became used to each other
over time — each day, a bit closer
to knowing more about the
person standing in front of
the other.

I have watched you grow from
a younger version of yourself
who always had to have her ears
to the ground of every goings-on
to a mature young lady who
stands up for what she believes in,
and reaches back to pull
someone else up to the same
place she resides.

you are a beam of intense light
breaking through the dark corners,
bolting yourself to the doors
of people’s hearts.
I love to hear you laugh which is
probably why I’m always cracking
jokes or doing what I can
to make that happen.

you are your mother’s child — strong
in your presence with a peppered
tongue and a big heart.
the way you’ve moved up in ranks
at work amazes me — shuffles a
heavier sense of pride to my
chest. 

I pat it once — accepting your
stride. I pat it twice — recognizing your
path.

this is a journey you were meant
to soldier — every day, you’re
carving into molds assigned to
deter you, and they crack in place
when greeted by your strength.
I know you know this but I would
slap someone in the throat
with a swift backhand if ever
your heart was torn in two.

it is the big sister in me
I cannot help it

and since you’re so much
like a little one to me, that
is inevitable.
keep gliding through the
difficulties of life with your
head held high and your
dimpled cheek facing the
heavens — let the blessings rain
down on you like they should.

you are deserving of
every last one.

For a coworker, friend, and now, little sister.

The Ladies of Workforce Management Poems #3

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NaPoWriMo#5: The Shadow-Speaker: For Stace-E

The Shadow-Speaker Tremaine L. Loadholt 2022 April 03

we don’t always see you but
we know you’re there — two-stepping
in the shadows, popping out only
when time allows or something has
fallen completely apart or a few
house rules need reiterating.

how is she overseeing it all,
I often think to myself? how is
it done and sanity is still
as crystal clear as it was one
year and five months ago?

I wasn’t always this vocal and
adamant on telling my higher-ups
what they mean to me, but flowers
are meant to be smelled while
one can still smell them, and I’m
moved to make sure you have
your bouquet.

Sometimes I don’t know what
I can do — sometimes I’m not as
confident in myself, but you’ll
step out of the shadows to remind
me of my abilities, and then I
remember — I can do whatever I
coerce myself to do.

you are serious about our work — 
about us maintaining a certain
presence as we submerge ourselves
in the almost neverending sea of
calls we get on a daily basis.
we know who we are.

we know what we can take.
on the days when breaking seems
like it’s so very close, you emerge,
and a sliver of light
pulses through the clouds.
goodbye darkness.

there’s a reason I say,
“Good morning, QUEENS” nearly
every day as I log in to help calm
the raging waters of doctors’
offices and patients alike retrieving
their orders . . . it is because
you are — all of you — standing tall
in the face of a promising
kingdom, directing us from
a not-so menacing throne.
thank you.

This is the last poem in The Ladies of Workforce Management Poems series. Thank you so much for reading.