MUZZLE MAGAZINE
  • Home
  • Spring 2023
  • Submissions
  • Archives
  • Blog

dissociative state
by Penda Mbaye Z. Smith 



no
does not hear you 

no needs to prove that he is a man 
no meant no harm, no thought 
you were playing hard to get– 
yes is a fractured window 
you reluctantly open: a river              
             comes from you
you did not ask for it 
the way one does not ask for it 
and yet you are wet
              water is complicated
it is both a song and the memory
of being taken shakes you 
the body must protect you 

                even if you are not there to decide, you chant:

no                         yes                          no                             yes                       no                      yes  
 
              
              no                                       yes                             no                           yes   no                 yes
             
no                yes                    no                                           yes             
you make                     no         
 

sound            you have                 no                             mouth                         no                       language      
   

no                      
 origin              no                    country              no                          race                           no  
​
​
culture                                   no                                        gender                                no                         sexuality     
















one day you will tell your father

​


Penda Mbaye Z. Smith is a Senegalese American writer, educator, and scholar whose work explores the role of pleasure in the search of and movement toward Black liberation. She has received support from the Watering Hole, Sun Valley Writers Conference, and Cave Canem fellowship. Her work has been featured in Huffington Post, Interim Poetics, Root Work Journal, and more. She teaches English at Louisiana State University. She enjoys napping. 

ISSN 2157-8079
  • Home
  • Spring 2023
  • Submissions
  • Archives
  • Blog