Witching Hour x Fools: Writer Skyler Barnes
Skyler Barnes, a native of Kansas City, is currently majoring in English and creative writing at the University of Iowa. Serving as Writing Editor for Fools Magazine, she's also studied under Robyn Schiff and Amanda Nadelberg in poetry seminars. Using poetry as her outlet she continues to explore herself and the world.
Excerpt of a Longer Piece
Barnes as woman; as born of Butler, as woman; as born of Houston, Andrew + Eveline. Barnes born of Fon; Born of Janice; Barnes born of Leora born; of Eveline born; of forgotten maiden name; lost name; born of color, of woman; Eveline. Birthright black colored line from Barnes of Butler of Houston; born of black; of color; born out of black back slashes; into farm; into land; Barnes of Barnes as mother, and mother continual.
Andrew + Eveline as beginning; begetting us, born of us; birth of stardust and rust; enmeshed; A + E as emergence; of the chaos before; creation birth; the world started in 1865; born of master name; lost name; born of color. Constant; pull of Cain to God, as black as mark as inheritance; I am but a result; of floundering land; as Eveline tilled; of Texas; of Oklahoma; as mother; as woman; what am I if not a byproduct?
I ask my mother to enlighten me; to tell me more of my history. She tells me that my great grandmother’s father’s name was Arthur Houston. That he was Australian, from Uluru. This is incorrect. His name was Andrew Houston. He was born in 1878, to two, presumably loving, parents that reigned from Alabama. Born 13 years after slavery, his parents, either free or enslaved, with names lost to history, migrated to Texas, where Andrew was born.
His eventual wife Eveline, born to a mother from Missouri and a father from Arkansas, was also born in Texas in 1881. Andrew and Eveline converged, sometime before 1920, begetting a child, Leora. 20 years later, a brother for her, Lloyd. In that time, Leora had married, having two children, Andrew Archester and Theophilus Dennis Butler, my grandmother’s first two older brothers. By 1940, Leora had moved to Kansas City, giving life to my grandmother in 1937. The youngest of nine, the only Barnes in a vast band of Butler’s. In marriage, my grandmother hyphenates, Barnes-Phillips, a hand grasping onto the only thing she could call her own.
My mother says we don’t have slave DNA in our blood, and I know this to be wrong. I tell my mother thank you, feeling the ancestral sting of my sister’s belt on my back. I wonder if my mother knows, or if misdirection was her intent. Perhaps she was willing it to be true, redeeming me of my past.