Once, the Great Black Swamp was a leviathan of environmental obstruction.
With vegetation so thick it was able to impede an entire war, it defied defilement. Every inch man carved through it was fought for with blood and sweat, every wet season threatened human headway with tried and true tricks: if the flooding wouldn’t stop the invasion, then the endemic malaria was not far behind. Larger than the present day expanse of the Florida Everglades and Louisiana’s Bartholomew Bayou combined, the 1,500 square mile marshland, with its twists, turns and traps, was a testament of Mother Nature’s vitriolic response to manifest destiny.
Alas, as happens with all good things, the victory was not made to last. Ragged edges were chipped away and laid claim to, parceled out to ambitious homesteaders. Soil was sifted, drainage tile laid, and those once formidable inches became less and less perilous to obtain. The Great Black Swamp seemed to exhale its final death rattle as the water table sunk into a deep, deep grave. “Conquered,” they claimed. “The land has been conquered.”
But oh, no. No, you arrogant fuckers.
Conjured up from the silt and detritus of the Great Black Swamp, Prosper Bonhomme is the product of contrarian pagan upbringing; one part roving Romani roots, another part closeted Creole scandal, and two parts cynical education. Too poor to be rich and too rich to be poor, they’ve camped in liminal spaces since birth, and it’s in the liminal where lies can twist into truths, and truths can be tugged at to reveal the fibers of lies holding them together. Question everything, little one, so when the wolf comes to your door, you’ll know him by his smile.
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I’ve been a witch since I was a child, tutored in the footsteps of solitary pagan parents in a journey beginning at birth. I unwittingly crafted babbling incantations in my backyard, made imaginary friends out of spirits and constructs, brewed potions in discarded buckets with dirt and plant leavings, and once, I tried to learn how to fly.
…If people ever wondered how my mother grayed so quickly, it was only until they met me.
The archetype of the witch is long overdue for celebration. Daughters, mothers, queens, virgins, wives, et al. derive meaning from their relation to another person. Witches, on the other hand, have power on their own terms. They have agency. They create. They praise. They commune with nature/ Spirit/God/dess/Choose-your-own-semantics, freely, and free of any mediator. But most importantly: they make things happen. The best definition of magic I’ve been able to come up with is “symbolic action with intent” — “action” being the operative word. Witches are midwives to metamorphosis. They are magical women, and they, quite literally, change the world.
-Pamela J. Grossman, “Year of the Witch”
Witchcraft has always been synonymous with action to me; is it really any surprise that I turned out an anarchist? My teachers and relatives worried over it from a young age, my “rebellious streak” that, when paired with a loud voice and a tiny frame, left me scrambling for corners to hide in. I couldn’t punch above my weight—I scarcely could punch at my own. But I was always the one trying to stick up for other people, always the one questioning. So what does one do when they are too weak to shoulder a beating, too scared to stand up against the frowns of teachers and other godlike authority figures?
You turn into a trickster, of course. Then you can run circles around those dumb motherfuckers.
It’s like that exercise in gym class—you run to the first line, touch it, and run back. Then you run to the second line, touch it, and run back. Then the third, then the fourth, and so on, and on, and on…
You’re pressing, pushing, seeing what’s comfortable and seeing what you can get away with. But it’s an endurance test too, and eventually, you can push further. You can deal with the burning in your lungs, the leaden dragging of your legs. You can start rolling with the punches. But you’re always jumping one line at a time, never more than that. Don’t get cocky, or you’ll end up lunch.
Remember, d’em pigs will eat anyt’ing.
There’s struggles. There’s struggles you can’t even imagine, but I’m hoping I can lay them out for you to see: fighting chronic illness and getting comfortable in my own body again. Owning my gender and progressing to where I want to be. Fighting to be heard in a group that only seems to think “love and light” is the way to live. Travelling through America, refusing to be complicit in the wage slave confidence trick. Standing on my own two feet. Trying to stay alive.
Gods, I want to live. I wasn’t raised from the silt and the sand just to pay taxes and die.
-Bon
Laissez les bonhomme rouler 