Adena M'lynn's Voice

By Adena M’lynn  We didn’t lose it in a war. We listed it.   Quietly, at first. A small print notice at the bottom of the page. Terms subject to change.   We sold minutes of attention. Then hours. Then whole days of labor  that never came home  with us. We sold the word citizen and replaced it with consumer because it sounded lighter in the mouth and didn’t require responsibility.   We sold the idea of common good for convenience, then blamed the poor for not affording it.   We sold prisons as solutions, schools as problems, and called suffering a personal failure to keep the balance sheet clean.   We sold safety by the headline. Fear by the cycle. Outrage by the click.   We sold bodies in uniform to contracts we never read, sent them back folded into flags, and called it honor instead of accounting.   We sold children their future in installments— test scores, debt, a climate that won’t wait for them to graduate.   We sold truth to...

by Inmate 07770-062  Mr. P never wore a badge that said  police, never carried the swagger of a street cop. Just a guard. A man who once dreamed of white aprons, steel pans clanging like applause, flavors blooming in the steam. Then Desert Storm came, left sand in his bones and a shadow in his step. Prison work was steady— steady enough to forget the kitchen for a while. Steady enough to believe the slogans, Repent. Rehabilitate. Steady enough to watch other people’s clocks tick away their time. Dreams? They started to feel like they belonged to someone else. Until the day he saw her— not in the mess hall, not in the yard— but in her cell, shoulders bent over a plastic bowl, chopping onion, fresh jalapeño, ripe tomato—every bit contraband. The blade in her hand was no kitchen issue. One call and she’d be written up. But he didn’t call. He just watched, listening as she poured out recipes like they were prayer— gumbo thick enough to stand a spoon, beignets soft and tasty as a S...

For the men who say they love women.  by Adena M’lynn   You say you love women— like a hunter loves the mounted deer head. Like a landlord loves the rent check. Like a shepherd loves a flock that never wanders too far. You say you respect women— but only when they know their place, when they nod without volume, when they bleed without asking for towels or rights. You say you were raised right— to open doors, to pay for dinner, to lead the prayer while she stays quiet with her eyes lowered like the second coming of shame. But let me ask you this, What is love if it only blooms when you’re in control? What is respect if it evaporates the moment she disagrees? You loved her voice until she used it. You say women are sacred— but your idea of sacred comes with conditions: legs crossed, lips sealed, loyalty to your ego above her soul. And God help her if she has a boundary you didn’t approve in advance. You keep calling women “queens”  but treat them like unpaid maids  in ...