Falkenberg, Saffyre

English

Collin College: DigitalCommons@Collin

ForcesVolume 2015 Article 185-1-2015Florence Mae Dixon: Campus Expansion Delayedafter Discovery of 2,000 Unmarked GravesSaffyre FalkenbergCollin CollegeFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/forcesThis Poem is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Collin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Forces by an authorized editorof DigitalCommons@Collin. For more information, please contact mtomlin@collin.edu.Recommended CitationFalkenberg, Saffyre (2015) "Florence Mae Dixon: Campus Expansion Delayed after Discovery of 2,000 Unmarked Graves," Forces:Vol. 2015 , Article 18.Available at: https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/forces/vol2015/iss1/182 52 0 1 5  F O R C E SFlorence Mae Dixon: CAMPUS EXPANSION DELAYEDAFTER DISCOVERY OF 2,000 UNMARKED GRAVESSaffyre FalkenbergI was 19 when my husband sent me to Jackson,Mississippi, away from the child I was sure couldn’tbe mine. He called it a hospital, but the white, stonecolumns, sprawling lawns, and enormous magnoliatrees couldn’t hide what it really was. “Stay in bed,” they said. “Don’t wearyourself out.”  I was left to be coddled likethe babe I left behind, rocked to sleep bymindless wails and the screeching of mockingbirds. I wasted my days in bed, keptcompany by the smells of burningcoal, kerosene, and melting wax. They didn’t allow me to rest outsideduring the hot Mississippi summers, when the mosquitoes were the onlyvisitors and the air was its own swamp. I was a number, just another lunatic;one more woman with a case of nerves. I was 22 when I was movedto the new sanitarium, as patient # 29 gave methe “consumption.” I suppose keeping whiteskin away from black skin was more importantto them than keeping the sick awayfrom the healthy. But we’re all sick here. 2 6F O R C E S  2 0 1 5BENCH ON BISHOP   Hector Reyes2 72 0 1 5  F O R C E SI became a living skeleton, drenchedin feverish sweat and hellfire.  No pointin making friends with the other bodies;they came and went quicker than there were beds.We were all just coughing, sneezing bed numbers. I was 25 when I drowned in my own lungs, disappearing into the night like the sun. Myhusband had stopped writing years before;it was no surprise that he didn’t claim me likehe once did.  They tossed me in the groundbehind the asylum like a sack of moldy grain, withnothing to show that I had ever haunted those halls. Many other “numbers” from the Mississippi StateLunatic Asylum joined my plot of earth. Our onlyacknowledgement came from the wildflowersMother Nature brought us each year, the wormsholding feasts of celebration over our convenient demises. I was 138 when I saw light again; it wasn’tat the end of the tunnel. They tookme to another hospital, the stenchof my rotten body clashing with the sharpsmells of sterility and alcohol. Instead of finding my family, they foundout how much it would cost to rebury me.Instead of learning my name, they learnedI was one out of two thousand.I am still a number, another body, simplyone more corpse in an unmarked grave. 

Florence Mae Dixon: Campus Expansion Delayed after Discovery of 2,000 Unmarked Graves

https://digitalcommons.collin.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=forces

Florence Mae Dixon: Campus Expansion Delayed after Discovery of 2,000 Unmarked Graves

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Collin College: DigitalCommons@Collin