I saw Him in my cellmate

The editors of Lalitamba gave me permission to publish my original art poem series (which I scanned as .jpeg files and then cropped) on my blog, but then screwed up and didn't include a linkback so that the text-only version which was intended as a guide to help readers navigate the text in the images appears to stand alone - and that completely invalidates all of the work I put into this vision. Oh, and the morons combined the last two parts into one part so that I was almost freaking out thinking they'd forgotten the last part (each part was an art poem whose whole made the series) So I trashed the extra complimentary copy (I received two), scanned the page in which my work appears (Annual 2015, p. 27) and added it after the last image of the art poem. I then went back and captioned all of the art poem images with the original text. But whatever, it's just another idiot amateur publication.

I was jailed once, for contempt. That cost me seven days. I spent one day in a room with other women and a guest speaker. We sat in chairs with hands on tables. She stood in front, next to the big speaker.

She never let go of the microphone, told us she learned to sing while listening to the radio, that this was God's plan for her to come and talk to us, to let us know He still cared for us. She singled another woman out for prayer while I almost cried.

Yet I know God was there, because I saw Him in my cellmate, a prostitute who gave me her chocolate snacks when I refused to eat after I got sick from other foods. How she kept silent until the guards came and threatened to send me for critical evaluation if I didn't

 shower. I refused to, because I didn't want to be naked in public again. She also chose to share her cell, worried for my safety. Thus, for me, God is always in the actions of other people, not words.

Vanessa Raney, "I saw Him in my cellmate," Lalitamba, Annual 2015, p. 27.