Lavinia Jackson

04/13/2026

6-12/30

6. I hear ancestors
as I put seed to soil
turn store bought dirt
into a fertile fusion
of compost and chemistry
kitchen scraps
savored by segments sliders

7.Gardens are key
holes barely raised
bed
left to layer leaves
crunching
callous
crowded
into new ecosystems

8. One bed
free from an old door
waited
prepared

Another
hadn't faded my script
from the outer walls
had left more words
to be more than decoration

That one bed
stretched beneath
acorn leaves
flanked
by seedlings
shared from mother trees

That other bed
held internet advice
and decades old wisdom
in the lasagna
of garlic
potatoes
ginger
and collards

9. One pot
wonders
turn nothin into somethin
stretch nutrition
until it tastes good
fills us
for days
on makeshift miracles

10. Hope
has roots
no matter the seed
growth
is as much about the dirt
as it is the need
Ain't no surprise
when protection
proceeds to point me
toward a railroad stake
I'd never seen

11.I wax between
the Essex County cadence
and what degrees
didn't teach
My story is small town big
and city come later
dayumed doing DEI
and daring to drive
to stop running
from the country inside
to know 2 truths don't make a lie
it just don't make it right
or wrong

12. My life
came with great expectations
crafted in quilts and kitchen's
at least 6 generations
I plant
listening for the wind
frustrated
frugality
fears needing to depend
while taking up
less and less space
pouring into community
from a less than full
place

The process ain't easy
It's tried and true
Grow something
and see
what it will do
for you.

04/06/2026

4/30

Imagine missing the lesson
Looking for time
You stretched out 3 years
Into legitimacy
A marriage to dissolve
Into a child’s last name
A degree heavy with
Student loans
Earned in familiar hostility
Soaked in the desperate sweat
Of worthiness
Work study
And domestic violence

Imagine begging for the blessing
Inequity set you up for
And it still lied
Told you your service
Leveled your inexperience
Convinced you rank
Made wrong right
Right after
Roopies wrote me
A life changing recipe

Imagine promising your past
Wouldn’t spit
Angry sepsis
And tasting it
Like my mother made it
Burning
Exasperation
Carrying
A curse

Imagine never seeing yourself
In the mirror
Just a carbon copy
Of a stranger’s story
I was too young to understand
With missing pages
That need decades
To decipher

Imagine moving in the ironic paradox
Of pitiful grace
Configurations of
Owed exceptionalism
Wrapped in white proximity
Pretending representing
Is as real as the rift
I raid

04/04/2026

Open windows
Allow birds to be
Alarms
Before the blare

I listen for who I used to be
On the second floor
Under the pecan tree

I hear the families
Welcome me to
Their pines
Their pear

Trusting me
With their prepared places

04/02/2026

Strands of discards
Banana leaves
Pelted Bison
Sheared wool
Gain new life
Where imagination
Meets necessity
Where time is measured
In line thickness
Where cover carries
The stories

Fast fashion
Tried outsourcing
Originality
Until landfills
Became island embargoes
That don’t matter
Not created
Not destroyed
Not consumed

Do I wear my discontent
In my upcycled adventures?
Do I indulge in an exchange
Laden with dopamine?
Do I treasure the pieces
I can easily source?
Do I throw myself away
To make room?

04/02/2026

I pretend preference
Hasn’t painted my palate
Like porous plastic
Heated for elasticity
Cooling and culling
My compliance

I pretend acceptance
Doesn’t anchor my aches
Like an avid avoidant
Running on treadmills
Training and complaining
My care

I pretend performance
Pays when my life won’t participate
Putting myself past my own purview
Selling dreams drenched
In dried up directions
Sniffling and snotty
My presence.

11/11/2025

Happy to all us, from the 5 branches, who serve and served. Go get your .

10/03/2025

Join us at Weatherspoon Art Museum on October 9 for a dynamic discussion with Greensboro artists who will respond to William H. Johnson's artwork through a contemporary lens! Moderated by our very own Community Partnerships Coordinator Karen Archia, they will explore issues of identity, liberation, and representation. See you there!

10/02/2025

isn’t a social media hashtag or a reductive catch all. It’s more than metaphysics meets modernity in the ER of a failing healthcare system, not failing by design but failing to care about the actual health of people. One core principle is patience. It takes time to build a story. It changes with every audience. Some details take decades of retelling. Time isn’t a transaction. It’s a witness to the story.

Time isn’t a commodity. It’s never fairly exchanged for labor. That inequity in embedded in how we care. It creates scars, wounds, masks, and maladies. This is unhealthy perpetually and perpetuated as self serving sabotage for the greater of nobody’s good. Time is our story stretched through collections of experiences. The elliptical effervescence that moves while standing still. When we choose to speak in ways that keep ourselves sacred, we live story. We get healthy.

10/01/2025

Narrative healthcare is the righteously and sacred indignity that alchemizes with every examination, the space where unlearning is open, where the quiet parts are allowed to wail, where we witness professionals become practitioners. 10/1/25

Challenging myself to write until 11/11/25.

09/25/2025

I'm wrestling with Blackness
the dangling carats
too shiny to deny
how dented bones
dug before puberty
demanded growth

Is this disjointed dementia
fragmented follies
follicular cysts
in spaces of birth
with nowhere else to go
slow growing until it hurts
what we call Black

I sat
Happy Hour
discussing the direction
of Black dreams
daring to disturb
what's on draft
and drink
down the dichotomy
of Black existence
like a mocktale
ginger lemonade
priced to parlay
a new purpose

the game has never changed
some of these players
ain't new
they are the kinda Black
counting exits and calculating
how many humans
see accessibility as embedded
in the art

They see the carats
the pretty rocks
cut for distraction
understanding pressure
is an underestimated weapon
so shiny
you won't see how Black
I am

Committing to raising consciousness
at the cost of my care
regularly eating crumbs
to curate while crumbling
hobbling to support
show face
self sabotage
so called strength

I been dying to live
since I got here
earnestly
burying the bets
who wrote me off
attending funerals
for the lives
I wasn't meant to live
for the relations
that had sinking ships
writing wills
because I won't be
forgotten
or frames as
Jessica Rabbit
only Black.

I'm the shiny prize
pushing doors
by approximation
no foundation
light skin
obscure
ivy league education
not quiet
nor quaint
a quirky quill
for special occasions
inkwell
just deep enough
tipping in her story
writes programs
where there were no pages
My Ink is Black.
(all rights reserved. LJ 2025)

09/25/2025

I had something on my mind.

Why your stories matter.

09/15/2025

Patriarchy teaches me
To divide my body
Into two places
A man can find
Pleasure
In the product
He created
To extend his
Lineage
So far
My skin is
The evidence
My breasts
Fondled
My va**na
Violated
Is present
In cups too large
To suckle a baby
Yet so necessary
A reduction
Is denied
My patience is inconvenient.

Patriarchy taught boys
To see me in parts
For production
Rather than
Pieces
I don’t miss
In my puzzle
How racism
Runs so deep
I reexamine
My role
In upholding
Understanding
Desperately
Misunderstood

I don’t know love
I know how
Proximity ain’t preference
It’s powerful
I never played in my own favor
My favor
Got played
Manipulated
Into misogynoir
On a team sport

I don’t know like
Without work
Shifting perspectives
Being wholly
Seen still
Is a caracature
An interpretation
Instigated
To entertain
Not authenticate

Whatever didn’t kill me
Didn’t make me stronger
Some battles
I only have breath
Left
To croon cadences
As I carry
Weight
Or fate
Further than generational grifters
Granted
It gave me a complex
A complexion
And a distrust
Drowned
In doing good
To be better than
Where I came from

I learned to hate
The sum of who I
Before I
Knew loving her
Wasn’t resistant
Or radical
Being relevant
Don’t make me any
Realer
It’s a set up
For disrespect
The lesser evil
Is almost being
What he wanted
Taunted
By what I can never be

I’d die alone
That to live
Unfree

(All rights reserved)