Choya Randolph

Choya is an adjunct professor at Adelphi University with a B.A. in Mass Communications and M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in Rigorous Magazine, midnight & indigo, Her Campus, The Crow’s Nest, NNB News and elsewhere. She’s a proud Floridian who lives happily on Long Island in New York.

“are you okay?”

My thumbs circle each other
My room is cold
But my tears are warm
In the eye of the storm is a wand shattering
The black girl magic breaking
Today is another backspace of my existence
Depression is a pencil rubbing me the wrong way
With an eraser too stubborn to clear my scars
If you open the door you’ll see a silence
A missed call from a mother
An imagination spiraling off of the page
When I take hours to respond
When I decline going out
It’s because I’m busy breaking
I’m daydreaming a lost reality
I’m spending money I don’t have
I’m eating foods I shouldn’t
I’m hoping my heartbreakers will halt healing
I’m listening to God laugh at me
And the future I don’t work for
I’m waiting for it to get worse
I’m waiting for the final leaf of me to fall
Like the warning of winter
I’m pondering if giving up could be the suicide He’ll allow
I wanna die on a Sunday afternoon
I wanna die in the middle of spring
I wanna die in a cold room
With upstairs neighbors loud enough
For my soul to complain
If you open the door you’ll see a rainbow umbrella
And a candle burning for no reason
Set the umbrella on fire
Watch the rainbow turn black