Mabel J Williams has developed her creative writing skills over the last five years. During this time, learning how to play with words has helped Mabel find her voice and discover her inner poet. She is an unpublished writer, better known in her local community for doing a bit of spoken word on an open mic., mostly in aid of charity fundraising or in support of local creative arts projects. Mabel now welcomes more opportunities to tell more stories (including her own), that can challenge social injustice and speak truth to power by saying the difficult stuff that needs to be said, in a way that can hopefully be heard, about people who need to be seen.

Alternative Reality

Unbearable truths must be spoken

but when the noose tightens, I choke.

Words gather like rain clouds in my throat,

helpless & hopeless I float.

Suspended in the undertow of racist ideology,

cast adrift amongst the flotsam & jetsam of white supremacy,

watching white psychopathy disguise itself as vulnerability,

but still punches down!

Seeking opportunities to witness our demise,

whitewashing black history with deadly white lies,

so malignant grandiosity can hide behind victimhood,

while we’re lost in a sea of do & don’t, ought & must & should.

Listen to dem laughing as we drown!

Purged of volition, paralysed by double binds,

we sacrifice our sanity, surrendering our mind,

to find refuge in madness, a place to hide & scream,

where we sit in silent protest, never heard & rarely seen,

holding our breath & yearning to breathe.

Some fighting for survival, others fighting to achieve,

& all the while self-doubt wrenches at the heart strings of our own humanity.

We’re tired to the bone from swimming upstream,

still looking for justice, still searching for a self-esteem.

Some days, cruelty carves its wounds etched deep in DNA,

until there’s nowhere left to hide from the misery of memories locked inside.

No respite for my body, no voice, no choice, so I seek sanctuary & pray.

For an alternative reality,

an alternative reality for an alternative me.

Because you see . . .

I once swallowed whole your vitriol & condemned myself to serve.

The fear, the rage, the hate on your face, became the hatred I deserved.

I resigned myself to pleasing you,

now I swallow down & choke . . . & wretch & gag & spew.

Mabel J Williams

In memory of my dear uncle Frankie – Rest in Peace 31st August 2026

“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself & half-believed, before I was able to walk on the Earth as though I had a right to be here.” – James Baldwin

Illustration by Rachel Wada

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-can-racism-cause-schizophrenia/