Blood Magnolias 2 Poem by MIRAK Montiel

Blood Magnolias II

Blood magnolias bleed into the marrow of history,
their petals heavy with centuries of sorrow.
Stories whispered through cracked winds—
broken hymns of flesh and fire,
of stolen names buried beneath forgotten trees.

I was told by the wind-voiced dead,
by ancestors who wept in chains,
of lands ripped from their breath,
of lives scattered like ash
across fields that drank too much blood.

The magnolias swayed—
not in beauty,
but like lashes falling
on backs too young to break.
Iron kissed their skin with fire,
and the silence that followed
was not peace,
but punishment.

At night, the wind taps against my blinds—
a ghostly rhythm,
like shackled feet dragged through dust,
like prayers smothered beneath stars
that never offered light.
The dogs bark.
The hooves pound.
Still.
Still.

They tried to crush freedom
beneath the weight of steel and sweat,
but the blood,
oh, the blood—
it rose,
seeping into the humid earth
like a sorrow too vast to hold,
like summer rain that never stops falling.

This is not a poem.
It is a dirge.
A scream sealed in leaves.
A truth the magnolia trees cannot forget—
bleeding still,
into the bones of time,
into our trembling dreams.