Author: Christina

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LAKAY

Lakay translates to “home” in Haitian Creole.

In honor of Haiti making it to the World Cup.

I do not mean to scare you,
but there’s winter in my bones.

I told them if you’re going to leave again,
close my door,
shut my eyes and cover them with blankets,
because those cold winds can kill,
and they always leave me with an eerie chill.

I am not as strong as I was before.
You can hear my floors groan
and see the signs of brokenness,
but do not get me wrong
there is beauty behind these endless walls.

The ice along my lashes helps reflect back all the light,
though I’ve forgotten what warmth feels like.
I could only remember if you bring me back to life.

I can be good to you if you let me.
I can be the place in which you live and not reside.
I can help you build memories that will last you a lifetime.

I know you are far from the place you love, you long to return and bathe in it’s sun

I can be what holds you up, until the day your journey is done

 Let me carry the stories you tell 

So fill me up with laughter, cries, and yelling.
Fill me up with the sweet, mouth-watering smell of dishes from your island:
griot, legim, and pate kòde

Celebrate your holidays with me,
and get merry while you drink kremas.

And do not waste your worry
on all the blizzards and storms,
for together we can create an internal flame
to keep us safe and warm.

So though I may be broken now,
through the surgical procedure of paintbrushes, hammers, and nails,
I can become what I’ve always dreamed of being:

more than bricks and stones,
but a place you can call home

– Christina S.

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Brown, Red, Black & Blue

The Colors She Became, Based on Multiple True Stories

Brown: We heard the stories, how the hallways were battlegrounds, how people were outnumbered day by day. How if you stood alone there was a bigger chance of you getting killed. Freshman year was the beginning of everything, the beginning of our everything. Kelly and I entered high school together, with shared promises of a lasting friendship. We did everything together, and it felt as if it would always be this way, us against them. Always us, never them. Us against this place where people played spin the bottle to kiss their pain away.

Until Kelly met him, the one who always wore a brown leather jacket. Not the beautifully chocolate brown, but the dirt kind of brown, the worn out kind of brown. It couldn’t have been real leather; it resembled plastic, and the sleeves would peel back like scabbed skin, revealing what lay underneath. And there in the back, was a capitol “T” that looked like it had been drawn on. Uneven. Childish. I never knew what the “T” stood for. I would watch as he rested his hands on her petite body, the bell ringing in my ears. For the first time, she said “go on without me.” The words sounded casual, almost kind. By the end of the day the scent of fake leather and cigarettes clung to her. Latched onto her like a baby clinging to a mother.

Red: I never knew or understood how someone could change the way you see a color. There wasn’t a day she didn’t come in wearing red lipstick, red nails, red anything. It was consistent. More consistent than our time spent together. Before all of this, Kelly use to hate lipstick. She said it made her feel like she was wearing someone else’s mouth. We would sit on her bedroom floor braiding each other’s hair, laughing at the girls who wanted to grow up too fast. Back then we thought time was something we could outrun.

“what’s with all the red?” I asked her one afternoon. She shrugged like the answer meant nothing “he likes it on me.” But do you like it on you? was what I wanted to ask. I left it at that. But the question sat heavy on my tongue for weeks. I wanted to ask her who she was becoming? I was afraid she would ask me who I was without her. Her tan, bare face turned into powdered features. We never needed crowds, but crowds gathered around her like moths to a flame. She loved the spotlight. I loved the version of her that existed before it. The hallways seemed to shrink when we passed each other. We exchanged nothing but nods and tight smiles, the kind you give to strangers you once knew too well. Even when I couldn’t fully see her, I could always recognize the flash of red.

Black & Blue: SATs, trips, college applications, prom, love, like, hate; everything blurred into something shapeless. The guidance counselor’s office became my refuge, the one place where life still felt organized.

The day I saw her again, I noticed her hands first. They trembled like they didn’t belong to her. Like someone had borrowed her body and forgotten to return it. She stood with her back facing me. I wouldn’t have known it was her. I wouldn’t have even checked. But there are some people your body remembers before your mind does. I hadn’t planned to say her name. When it left my mouth, it sounded like a question i didn’t want answered.

“kelly?”

She turned slowly. A gasp flew out of me before I could stop it. Against her tanned skin were patches of black and blue. On her cheek, around her right eye, her bottom lip split in two, like a bruised fruit. Her eyes were bloodshot, already drowning. I said nothing. I had no words. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I held her.

Once the first tear fell, the rest followed in a relentless stream. She buried her face into my shoulder, and I could feel her silently screaming, a storm she was trying to swallow before it destroyed her. Her tears soaked through my shirt as if she were trying to disappear inside me, to crawl back into the girl she used to be. I embraced her, and inhaled fake leather and cigarettes.

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“Smash, Hit, Take:” How Violent Sex Language Dehumanizes Women

Growing up, I remember hearing the phrases boys in my classes used to describe sex or their sexual encounters. “I hi that,” “I beat it up,” “I’d smash that,” “getting drilled.” I didn’t fully understand the weight of what I was hearing. It sounded casual, just words. But now as an adult, I hear the violence embedded in them.

These phrases were never neutral. They are, and were, derogatory. They frame sex as something that happens to a woman, not with her. They strip her of agency and position her as a passive body. Something to be used, entered, and acted upon regardless of what she feels, wants or experiences. What is meant to be intimate, sensual and sacred is reframed as conquest, domination and at times pain. This mindset does not exist in isolation but feeds directly into rape culture and gender-based violence. Men who prey on women do not see women as whole people; they see bodies. They are conditioned to believe sex is owed to them, something they are entitled to. And when consent is not given freely, some feel justified in taking it by force.

I watched a Tiktok where a woman documented being followed by two men. in the video, she holds up a used pad as a form of defense. The moment the men realized what it was, they fled. We are desired for our curves, the sway of our hips, our breasts, yet our anatomy is disregarded. The contradiction is telling, women are sexualized but not humanized.

When violent language is normalized to describe sex, it shapes how young men and women understand intimacy. It paints a picture of sex as inherently aggressive, rough by default. And while rough sex can exist consensually and intentionally, assuming that all women want pain, force, or dominance because that is how sex has been culturally framed is not only wrong but dangerous. The porn industry ( an industry I despise more than anything in this world) plays a significant role in this miseducation. Women are depicted as endlessly available, always ready, always submitting, rarely expressing discomfort or refusal. A perfect fantasy. This creates a distorted understanding of intimacy, one where consent is assumed and boundaries are invisible. A woman’s “no” is either absent or ignored altogether.

Language matters. The words we use teach us what is acceptable, what is expected and what is allowed. When we speak about sex in violent terms, we reinforce a culture that prioritizes power over connection, entitlement over consent and domination over mutual desire. That culture has consequences as we see very clearly in today’s society. At its core, sex is meant to be a consensual act. It is meant to be mutual enjoyment, a shared experience where there is give and take. Where one person does not overpower the other. Women deserve to be seen within the act, not acted upon. Our bodies deserve to be heard. When only one body is centered and the other is silenced, sex stops being intimacy and becomes about control. Until women are recognized as equal, active participants in sex, the violence embedded in how we talk about it will continue to shape how it is practiced.

yours, in truth

Christina