Disposableby Sabrina Dawkins The jungle is lonely.My enemy is green foliagehiding predator beasts from my sight. I thought they were like me. How could they not be like me?The jungle teaches there’s predator or prey. But they aren’t naked,making strange noises in the distance. Sometimes they even wear suits, ties, slacks,perfume to mask the animal

Fiction’s Waking Dream by Sabrina Dawkins 6:00 a.m. brings abrupt screeching blast piercing night like surgeon’s knife. And I can’t locate pain as I recover from anesthesia, but I know it lurks. Where should I assign pain, to ears? But hands never covered themto muffle the noise.And smooth darkness shielded eyes that sprung open shocked.

How Faith Worksby Sabrina Dawkins Suspended in nothing, darkness approaches as a boundless flood. Then still small voice glides towards me atoprestless waves of despair, a fearless ghost, it seems, but I can’t be sure. It will keep me afloat if only I trust. Elijah must remember to trust voice now inside.Peter would not sink

Basketball Rivalby Sabrina Dawkins I have to win. 700 shots a day.When wrist gets sore, stop at 400. My nemesis probably shoots 1,000.I’m working up to it. Him, I must destroy. We are at war.Come game day, he’ll reach me his hand,but I will ignore. No desire to befriend.We are enemies; he must not realize.He

Malcolm X, a Prophet and More by Sabrina Dawkins The Bible says there was a warand by the blood of the Lambthe saints defeated Satan, and by their testimony, and that they were unafraid of death. At the end of his autobiography, Malcolm X hoped that “it might prove to be a testimony of some

Moses Hoganby Sabrina Dawkins Sleepy-eyed at the dashboardof a smooth dark massthat had, perhaps, at one time, been whipped‘til skin rose to lessen the distance the weapon traveled—smart skin. A choral convention is no placefor the living dead, I thought. The words that waltzedto fruition from this curious shape planted before hundredswere like the chants

Fame by Sabrina Dawkins A circus train went through our town carrying midgets and giants and all the extremes. Their clothes flashed in darkness like sting of lightening striking nightor a serpent’s tongue licking the air. The shine of cheap clothing upstaged vacant faces that bobbed to their doom, descending from the ride to activate

Picture in Words by Sabrina Dawkins Creating a picture with words is like brushing too much paint on a wall so the excess starts running down in slow, parallel drops, but too slowly to reach the floor. You don’t brush in the drops to flatten. Instead, you watch them as they slow to a stop