sanguine, by TaJuan Immanuel Skai

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

As a child, like many children, I had a vision of what the world was, and how my life was going to go. To say the lenses I wore were rose-tinted would be an understatement, as they truly were reality-altering, hallucinogenic. How could a child with African and Native descent even conceive the soil that their little feet stand on, that American foundation built upon the dehumanization and discrimination of the family they barely know? In addition, the family I was aware of, that household I poured all the love I was capable, ignited in flames and withered away as I watched, powerless in my youth. Such a disillusionment could unravel in many ways…sanguine is one such way. As a child, despite all the things I thought I knew, one desire that has survived the fire, all of the drama between my breaths, has been my dream of writing a book.

This chapbook serves to be another step towards that journey, as these poems set to reconcile with the past that bruised me, the scars I created and caused along the way, and the healing that I discovered through immersing myself into poetry. I can only pray that a reader can enter and leave these pages with newfound strength despite their struggles, a refined faith in their future, an uproar from their inner child, for that is what these poems have provided me.

TaJuan Immanuel Skai is a student and poet from Ohio. Their aim is to build a community of love through their therapeutic pieces. They adore pure laughter, conversations traveling nowhere, and a white chocolate mocha (with oat milk!) from anywhere.