Deborah J. Burris-Kitchen, Ph.D. is a Professor of Criminology at Tennessee State University. She is the author of Female Gang Participation (1997), Short Rage: An Autobiographical Look at Heightism in America (2002), and Deviance and Control (2021). Her recent book, Exposed (Atmosphere Press, 2023), is a collection of short stories and poetry, with Overexposed forthcoming from Pegasus Press. Dr. Burris-Kitchen has also published numerous articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. Her scholarship and activism examine themes of justice, identity, and resistance.
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| Deborah J. Burris-Kitchen |
A Heart I Cannot Finish
I’ve been trying—
trying to paint this masterpiece,
this warm, beating heart
on a canvas that keeps tearing beneath me.
Brush dipped in soft blues, crimson reds—
colors gentle as compassion,
deep as devotion,
colors meant to heal.
But winter…
winter barges into my studio
like a wrecking ball blessed by a reckless god,
determined to ruin every stroke
before it even dries.
The cold comes first.
Yeah—that cold.
The kind that crawls in quiet,
cracking the canvas at its center,
splitting open the place
where warmth is supposed to bloom.
I stitch it back together—
mending a wound no one else can see—
but frost creeps in anyway,
mixing my colors,
turning reds brittle,
blues to ash.
Then the wind kicks in—
a furious critic with rough hands,
snatching the brush from my fingers,
flinging paint like heartbreak detonating on linen.
The heart I’m trying to paint?
It twists,
warps,
buckles under the storm—
love blown off course
before it ever gets the chance
to breathe.
And when I think it’s over,
darkness spills in—
thick, heavy, hungry—
ink flooding every bright hue
I fought to hold onto,
swallowing the room
like Malevich’s Black Square devouring its own light.
Blues bleed into reds,
pinks collapse into bruise-purple,
my whole palette
falling into grief
disguised as art.
But I grab a new canvas.
Because I always do.
The temperature drops—
the world forgetting its own heartbeat—
freezing the paint mid-stroke.
My brush skates helplessly
across that frost-bitten surface,
like a heart reaching out
to someone
who will never
reach back.
I try to warm the room.
I try to breathe hope into it.
I try to thaw the edges
with the heat of my trembling hands—
but the sudden thaw
melts the ink,
turns my careful lines
into long, weeping tears
sliding down the canvas
like all the nights
I handed someone my heart
only to have it cut open
and returned like an apology
no one bothered to speak.
But listen—
I’m still here.
Shivering, yes—
but standing.
Stubborn.
Soul loud.
My palette full of colors
I refuse to surrender.
I keep painting a heart
I’ve never been given—
but still believe in,
still reach for,
still dream exists
somewhere beyond winter’s bite.
And maybe one day—
maybe—
someone will shut that damn window
winter keeps breaking open.
Maybe someone will lift a brush beside me,
steady these shaking hands.
But until then—
I paint.
I repaint.
I paint again—
this heart,
this masterpiece only I can see,
even as winter claws at my window
trying to turn my warmth
into a blizzard.
Because inside me—
despite everything—
the colors of tenderness,
of fire,
of love—
refuse
to die.
Predator of Dreams: A Lullaby of Winter’s Loneliness
Loneliness prowls into my dream,
a silent predator,
its footsteps padded with scrap-metal sheets.
Day bleeds out slowly—
as the wounded animal staggers into dusk—
night rises from its carcass,
slick and cold.
Summer vanishes in the distance,
its warm breath curdling into shards of ice
that fall like splintered feathers
from dying birds.
Each one carries winter’s deadly virus—
a prophecy of cold,
eager to bury anything still warm.
I move slowly through the hours.
Each minute leans its weight against my ribs.
Trees moan in their sleep,
their branches twitching like restless limbs.
The wind hisses:
keep going, keep going—
but the sound… eerie,
like ice cracking on a frozen lake.
Paths twist, full of dead leaves.
Rivers barely move,
and crystals cling like shards along the riverbed—
skeletal, reaching,
their icicles leeching my fire.
Touching everything,
yet never genuinely loving what it touches.
The world beats in a fractured rhythm—
thrum… hush… thrum… hush—
an unsteady chant
playing my ribcage like a harp.
Survival feels like balancing
on a tightrope
above a bottomless ocean,
hearing the waves crash on frost-covered sand,
but never calling my name.
Winter opens its jaw,
consuming the final residue of the sun.
The sky trembles like a lantern
on the verge of death,
its flame flickering, flickering,
fighting for the fuel it needs to burn.
I cry out:
this is a dream—
a fever to protect me from frost’s bite.
But even my breath feels practiced,
a ghost-cloud rising
from a body grown too old, too cold.
I tell myself morning waits somewhere,
counting the beats of my pulse.
Smoke rings spiral into the dusk.
The night feels endless.
My heartbeat slows.
My voice goes silent—
a quiet whisper in the dark.
Can anyone hear me?
Wake up—
I beg.
Wake up—
I plead.
Wake up—
I beg.
But the dream tightens around my neck,
and winter sings a perilous lullaby,
rocking the world into a deeper sleep,
as if warmth never existed,
and I were the last one
who believed it did.
…Am I still dreaming?
Vacheron
Vacheron.
Constantin.
Patrimony.
Thin gold glints—
quiet against your wrist.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I heard it.
I couldn’t speak.
Alone— chest hollow, heart pounding.
Tick… Tick… Tick…
Hours lost.
Minutes stolen.
Never returned.
But you never knew—
how could you?
The Patrimony catches the light—
flawless, warm, my ribs burn.
I anticipated your arrival—
that easy swagger, that smile breaking toward me.
Dreams melt through my fingers,
like early-morning fog.
Time bent for you.
For me, it shattered—
glass in slow motion,
scattering hours, I’ll never reclaim.
For you, it never faltered.
The watch keeps time.
My heart breaks quietly.
Darkness settles on my skin.
Glitter sinks into cold sediment.
Time—relentless—moves.
I move with it.
Why would I not?
Vacheron.
I can no longer hear it tick.
Then suddenly, I do.
You fixed it—
not for me,
not for the hours I wept in silence,
holding the ghost of your presence in my hands.
A gear slips somewhere in my chest.
You still wear it.
Gold, diamonds, absence, ache— lingering.
Seconds— minutes— hours— days…
still ticking.
Vacheron.
Constantin.
Patrimony.
Tick… tick… tick…
I wait,
quiet,
with hours I’ll never hold again.
Mine.
Yours.
Never ours—
fragments of your pulse still beat in me,
while time moves on without us.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Two Squirrels and a Fridge
I’m antiquated—
a young girl’s ghost trapped inside my ribcage.
Some mornings I hear her laugh
in the steam rising from my coffee,
a tiny spark that almost catches fire.
Then reality slides back.
The room on the other side of my prison wall
breathes like a stranger,
and sometimes I swear
it’s no longer there.
I dug this hole—
nowhere to go.
If dreams were lightning,
I’d have been struck
into a million pieces years ago.
But I’m too tired to start a fire…
I’m used to truth’s cold exhale.
Two squirrels follow each other up a tree, playful—
are they real?
I see them run across my TV screen.
The silence is earsplitting,
mocking me between commercials.
The fridge exhales at last,
pushing me back
to something more lifelike.
Make me anything that isn’t me—
a streetlight blinking in a language I almost understand,
a scrap of rusted metal singing in the rain.
Only the wind knows the real reason
I decided to stay.
Give me one thing—
one tiny anchor—
so I can get dressed,
so I can keep pretending
this endless grind of days
isn’t already the afterlife.
