'You Me and Poetry Scholarship Slam'
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The words swirl around in my head,
Always unable to speak them aloud,
Never able to look you in the eye and say what I mean,
So I take out my pen and I hope that you understand.
Growing up, my parents encouraged me to act.
But looks are important and they said I was fat.
They told me if I want to play the lead I’d have to lose weight.
"The sun was an angry little pinhead."
If the body is a temple, mine has been
sacked.
The sky's cruel torch forgot me
on its way across the sky.
When I write, I’m in control
When I write, the words are my sword
When I write, my heart opens up
When I write...
Then writers block hits
poetry makes it easier
the attempt of articulation of the abstract;
feelings too unfocused to figure;
emotions endlessly endeavoring for expression
To be a poet is to be a thinker
A challenger
A believer in the magic of our own minds
It's really a lovely image, isn't it:
The Lone Poetess, writing boldly, in tune
A world unto herself, a world in her mind.
I am not her.
I can't build worlds for myself;
Amongst a crowd of people,
I am always the one furthest from reaching the sky.
In other words, I am short.
Petite.
Vertically challenged.
Believe me,
Tossing and turning and it’s 2:17 AM I
can’t sleep with sheets twisted around my limbs
stretching and grasping in the dark at the dark and it’s too hot
this pillow under my head I
turn it over 27 times
You are my mother
I never knew
I never seen
I never will
We live apart
You and I
One world
Two sides
Alaskan skin in bright Californian sun Summer smiles From one end to another Our time passed And time keeps passing Our memories rearrange themselves Leaves green fade orange Blank spaces and backspaced words Filled with small smiles Like leaves
I write to speak
To be heard
To live out my dreams
There’s no better way
To be understood
Than to sew my words like seams
Poetry is my tool for expression and stress relief. Here is my poem which is a debate I have within myself where I claim that Poetry (She) is futile in my depression and preoccupation with the past mistakes.
To me
Words have always been unique
When people failed to be
For me
Writing down my thoughts as
words, phrases
lines, stanzas
stories
Was easier than
For an amber lady beetle, it’s a challenge to be heard. My hum blends in with the usual buzz of the urban wild. My voice hides beneath blankets of blaring conversation.
It starts out with Emotions-
Emotions turn into Thoughts-
And Thoughts into Words-
Words turn to Sentences of these Notions-
Sentences on a page
As blank and as unadulterated
As the canvas
"Forgive, but do not forget," is a saying as old as time.
Ordinary as it may be, it is a powerful message; one that has been forgotten over the years by so many.
Passionate thumping rhythm;
Hertz that sway with the simplest of motions;
A sound different -yet so similar- to any other.
It is something that can not be replicated-
A poem is just thoughts
And my head is full of them
A poem is just words
But they mean something
A poem is just a song without music
Just a thought written down
There are words inside of me.
There are words inside of me that I cannot always put my finger on.
They lay in wait, sometimes even when I need them.
My tongue stumbles
I grasp at empty darkness
I live the ruff life.I ruff at the neighbors.I ruff at the cool, dry wind that stings my furs.I ruff at the bikers that pass by in blurs.But most of all,I ruff at the cursed UPS truck.
The wheelbarrow fits nearly all their belongings
As they walk down dirt roads to their new home.
Nothing more than wooden stakes and a tarp,
But at least they can call it their own.
Fears between steps of the everyday walk of high school,
Trying to make stepping stones of new beginnings, but between my fear, dreams, and hope
It was a myth that held me back,
a stubborn kid, ready to be "mature".
Forget Doctor Seuss, I wanted to go Wilde.
I wanted to paint a picture, not say
Trees are green,
My heart’s on my sleeve
My foot’s in my mouth
My ears want to hear music
While my head’s in the clouds
My visions in the future
My legs walking me from the past
My temper’s slow to anger
I’m just a kid
Always have been, always will be.
From the creative spirit I display
To the tests that life has to offer
In a community full of strict words, strict language, strict voices
Growing up in the military leaves one with no other choices
Expected to grow up fast and be strong
When all I wanted was my teddy bear to hold
A grasp on my word only to pierce your flesh.
Words made of wood that never rest.
I didn’t choose to express my thoughts like this.
It just seems to get out with a twist of my wrist.
Hello, old friend, I am calling for you, can you hear?
I know I've strayed, but can you save me once more?
Against your warnings I've jumped and forgot how to swim.
All my life I had been called imaginative. My parents, relatives, friends, teachers and many others always found my methods of description and such slightly peculiar.
Writing requires thinking.
Being,
Doing.
Following a dream
That’s worth pursuing.
A task that others said
Wasn’t even worth reviewing.
But I know what I am doing,
Waking up to your sweet soft
Breathing, a melody to
Keep time with my heartbeat
Morning sunbeams treaming through
Illuminating your pale
Loveing lipes, the pink of
When I was surrounded by rain, poetry found me.
When the horizon seemed too destructive, too dark, poetry found me.
My body convulses,
stomach muscles tighten,
sides are aching,
shuddering with pain.
I cry out;
the only time I make a sound.
Unable to stand,
I hunch forward.
Painfully shy, an introvert, without many friends
A child of divorce, found salvation with a pen
Black and blue world, smudged ink on her hands
Wrote herself a ticket to faraway dreamlands
Words once swam around my
Skin and danced across my
Fingers and sung melodies I
Couldn't understand
It was wonderful when
My teacher told me I could
Keep them like
It all starts with a thought
Something you can’t get out your mouth
You can’t find the words because they are trapped
Trapped behind this poisonous tongue
When I was a young age of
four,
I wanted to understand why the other kids could run
faster and l o n g e r
than I could.
When I was
six,
I did not know why the big, bad
i didnt actively decide to become a poet and i still dont consider myself one
it felt more like falling, like blindly doing something, im still not sure
all i know was that i wrote
I read that words have the power to change us and for the longest time, I refused to believe it.
Im nor impressed or depressed
though emptiness fills the void of torturous screams in my head
pounding,
trying to arise and escape
but i stay silent as they float to my thoughts
I was only fourteen when everyone around me started to grow up,
For they were passing themselves off as if they were twenty-one,
Spending their Friday nights drowning their veins in alcohol,
Poetry is not comfortable
like the humming of a mower
on an autumn morning,
nor is it the sounds of the birds
outside my bedroom window.
It always has been
The power of words; the potential of letters,
A simple syllable can make things better.
Soft, harsh, dull bright,
Every polished thought shines a light,
On things we hide, on things we expose;
I cannot call myself a poet
I can't compare to those who truly know it
To Whitman and Brown and Frost and Poe
What is a word worth but a way to show
My emotions and ideas to the world around me
Gentle were my symphonies,a gift unknown to me.I voiced my sweet catastrophes,but my words were lost at sea."Seven years is too young," They say,for a girl to wonder freeabout her mind in a place
All the thoughts,
The thoughts,
The thoughts that pile in my head.
When the hate, anger, and pain from the world come crashing in.
No one listens,
No one cares.
To hear my words just bothers theirs.
Poetry abuses me,
Flirts with me one minute and
Abandons me the next.
She gives me palaces
And then she burns them to the ground.
Poetry taunts me,
Hands me jewels and fills
Within a cloud far from the abyss of life
Alone with no where to hide
My heart broke my mind froze
It was as if time were darkness consuming all light
My sweetest smile diguised abhor
Wind was hard and coldly bitten;
Sun fails, but still, golden, glimmers.
Water’s haughty and so frothing;
I AM GAY AND AFRAID
I am an artist, a writer, a poet, a educator, a curator.
I don’t want to be afraid to call myself those things.
Dys go by and agin on the news you here it.
Rumpumpum man down, shot by the gun of who should have protected him.
There's no protection if your color is dark like chocolate or glowing like Honey.
There is a void between parent and child
More of a treacherous rift
A raging ocean
As one is prosecuted and tried
The other is collapsing
Slowly falling under the pressure
I am not a poet,
And when I do I try,
I put myself down,
And give up every time.
I am not a poet,
Though I would like to be.
I find I can never express
My feelings accurately.
At eight years old I was the most pretentious person my parents knew
I spouted Shakespeare with ease and wrote secret love letters to myself
When I was nine I forgot that the love letters existed and glued a mask onto my face
I use my words because they define me
Scrambled in my brain until paper sets them free
I use my words because today, actions lead to manslaughter
I have hopes and dreams.
Not to grant me money or fame but they are vibrant passions.
A passion that i yearn for, and ache for although it seems to be making a run for it.
Life was difficult trying to cope with people who tried to put me down.
With pen and paper I learned to channel their words into something beautiful.
I woke up from a nightmare
Drenched in sweat
I heard bullets and screams ring through the air
"POLICE, PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON!"
"BLACK LIVES MATTER!"
As I looked out the window, blood flooded the streets
Thoughts speak louder than words,
So they say.
Never had I believed it more,
As time flew by the day.
As a young child,
I spoke and thought of wonders.
Books and cleverness,
The wheels of my bicycle turn
Grinding into the trail as if to tell the dirt where it has been
The spokes a silver flash in the gathering darkness
Quiet they say, silent I am,
But through this writing they will understand.
I don't say much but I think a lot.
Words dance in my head but that's their hang out spot.
I'm scared of judgement when I try to speak out,
The world needs poetry
Its a confusing and undescribable thing that no one truly understands
But they still need it
Its cold words chipping away at their tough exterior
Wrinkled edges and dog-eared pages,
Smudges from the swift stroke of a careless hand ―
Crispy remnants of a poem spaghetti-stained
Employ the men who left their homes. Afraid, astray, alone they fight.Return, return, insist the moms. Frontiers assault and chill the bones.Nor friend nor foe, welcome the light.Employ the men who left their homes. Avow their dignity and pay
How do you explain a laugh?
How do you explain a sigh?
How do you explain something that is just a part,
A part of what makes you
You?
A part as indistinguishable from the rest.
A successful student is eager,
yet not always prepared.
A successful student shows no fear,
and tries to not be scared.
A successful student is hard-working,
but can stray from the goal.
Grasping for hope,
I befriended a notebook.
Voicing my fears loudly-
It’s become a good listener;
Such a quaint, leather-bound affair.
Despair and loss came one day.
I never saw the world seem so gray.
I didn't know what else to say.
Life seemed so hopeless to my dismay.
I found a door one day by me.
A door of hope and mystery.
It’s like something just hit me, I knew it had to be.
Like a bolt of lightning, just so spontaneously.
My love for writing grew fast.
I could write anything I wanted to reflect in the present, future, or past.
What does poetry mean to me? I'll tell you-
Poetry is freedom
The freedom to express yourself
To speak an opinion
Through crafted words
The freedom to speak art
And have it be just as beautiful
I am a story
And sometimes that story
Cannot be told in prose
Or fiction, or in philosophical essays
on the struggle of Man's ethics
Between the diminishing light
And the impending dark.
Poetry
What is poetry?
Poetry can mean different things to you and me
It is not a skill you can pick up on suddenly
Or a skill you can be born with
“scoliosis” a word i’d never thought i’d hear
conclusions dusted themselves off from the back of my head
it felt as if my body betrayed me, off course it veered
Stop
Stop with accusations
Against the ones with no defence
Don't show pride
Becuase I see your ignorance
Ignorance towards race
towards color
gender
and name
There is a girl,
And she is young pretty and bright.
But, she lived with words inside of her, like a parasite.
They could be nice, gentle and loving,
like a mother is to a child.
Sit down ,be quiet, don't look around you're a lady
Girls do not play football beacause they will get dirty
Sit down, be quiet, don't look around you're a lady
"Why is it that we can have an all girls school,
but when we have all boys schools,
it's sexist?"
Except,
No one's said that.
And if they have,
There are people who find all girls schools sexist.
She loved the sound of hearing the pencil sharpener run.
Sharp as a tac, that’s how she liked her pencil.
Putting the pencil to paper, she watched as crumbs of the tip broke, and blew away.
The palms sway and wave at us from up above.
Lifeless feet shuffle across the horse trodden bricks of Sevilla Street,
As I touched the powdery texture of its skin.
My hands could not resist the urge to pick the thin ball point with dark black ink.
As my hand and the ink touch its skin it felt as if we were made for each other.
Freedom
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For families, friends, and futures-
Resilient; your heart remains-
Echoing the cries from
Poetry
These Words of Self-Express
Poetry Is My Only Therapist
I Can Tell You How I Am Feeling, Doing
Poetry
Came As A Savior Through Rough Times
Mom Had Cancer, Father Unemployed
It started with chalk on the sidewalkOn a day when my words were not heardAs I spoke them - so I wrote themDown on the groundFingertips raw as my thoughts sawedBack and forth on the concrete
Frozen.
Stuck.
Words failing to form.
A story too long to focus on.
Suddenly,
A butterfly thought.
Fluttering around before landing on a new paper.
The world fallen silent.
I learned that poems didn't have to rhyme
I learned that poems didn't have to keep up with time
I learned about poems like they were my best friends
I knew how to make them happy or sad
Where our voice cannot reach
Poetry is the bridgework
We write what we cannot say out loud
And our voices are deafening
Everyone says your old now
That its your time to explore and mature
Excuse me, but I am not a scow
I am someone who can be easily detoured
I am still young and unsure
The only thing my mama ever gave me was the ability to write the things I could not say
When her brother was shot six times in the face
When cancer claimed her grandmother’s life
When she lost full custody of us
A story to tell
Made simple
Ongoing
To empower
Inspire
Forever
Ongoing
Love
Pain
Life
Memories
All continuous
As words
As messages
Found long ago
I'm tired, please stop.
It's late, and I'm starting to hate
the sound of the hands on the clock.
Counting every minute, every hour
That you two fight and bite
And tear at each other's hearts.
Trapped , I was stuck in the cages of my ribs, lost in the chambers of voices in my head, all alone.
Realizing I was a slave to the idea of breaking free. My mind controlled by fear, my heart controlled
Help me dream a dreamer’s sleepOne that no one else can keepOne that makes me smile and thinkThe deeper into sleep I sinkTake me back to NeverlandWhere there’s golden grains of sandWhere the mermaids sing and playAnd faries work the day awayWhere
landing in the sea expecting to drown till everything turns black,
swiming into the deapths of the ocean thinking ill see only darkness,
looking for death, but seeing life,
dreaming about the bad to wake up to the good,
I first started really writing poetry in ninth grade. They had a poetry slam at my school, and I had some friends who were going so I checked it out. It was so beautiful, the words they said and how they were said.
At the age of fifteen I lost myself in the cold of a crowded highschool.
I didn't know what was cool, I didn't follow those that ruled.
Halfway through my freezing freshman year I discovered I wasn't truly lost,
Poetry came into my heart,
When my third grade class made our very own poetry books.
On certain days, we would write our own poems about anything we loved.
Each poem I have read ever since, I still love.
United You Stand-
Disciplined;
Trained;
With crisp Caps-
and leaden Boots-
Ready to Depart For Battle:
United You Climb-
Powerful;
Resilient;
With glaring Suns-
I travel,
Hoping to unravel
The mysteries of the island
one that speaks with silence
“I’ve travelled there”
I was fourteen years old when Sierra DeMulder
and Lacey Roop took the cracking dirt clump that sleeps
in my ribcage, and spoon fed it rose water and crushed eggshells.
Reputation, respiration, I breathe within the pen.Divination, exhalation, I bleed within the pen.Degradation, desperation, I need what’s in the pen,To set me free, the lock, the key. I need what’s in the pen.
I like writing poems
But poems don't like me.
Whenever I write
It looks like debri.
The words don’t make sense,
The timing is
Off,
What is it?What is it that I didn't do for youWhat is it that I didn't take from youWhat is it that I didn't endure
You Promised Me Forever. Remember?Remember you promised me foreverYou promised me we will be husband and wifeRemember?
You told me onceThere was no other but meBut you lied to meYou broke my heart into piecesAnd brought tears to my faceWhich you promised you'll never doAll the promises you made to me
You and IDancing to this rythm of oursOur bodies swayed in motionChemistry rising up above
Oh darlingHow I love you soAs we have our bodies clinged togetherEyes locked on one another
Some have been betrayed beforeSome have been heartbroken so many timesSome have seen the bad side of loveI've been in those shoesAnd most of us can relate too
I miss the feel of your skin
The velvet appeal leading me to sin
Sweet and melancholic, the way you kiss
Though, I can only reminisce
You leave a lot. And though you always come back
I have been searching for my true love in all the wrong places,
Falling in deep landing face down feeling as if love just isn't my thing,
But again and again I trick my hear into beating for someone new,
Dark clouds were once my pupils,
Except it only rains as I was hurting,
From my frustration,
My sorrow,
And my lack of faith,
I begged for salvation,
As the blazing inferno,
If I were to swallow the entire
bottle,take them all instead
of one, these vacant halls would
remain dead.
If I were to drain myself into the tub,
slit my wrists, and watch the blood-
In my earliest memories I am dead
My heart as cold as the winter breeze
That nipped my fingers
When I was too scared to go home
My eyes are dull
Like erased pencil marks
The imprint of
A quiet ding and a soft padding of bare feet
On the wooden floor
Bathed in sunlight
The quiet hush of breath taken together
You may
Shut me up
Break my will,
Imprison me,
just because you
disagree
with
my
beliefs.
It is the voice in your head
Some have given it a name: Conscience
but Mine screams and screams
Never turning off.
And so I write to free
my cluttered mind to be
An empty and calm place
You ever get the feeling as if you may fall
No matter what or who it is
You just get giddy or concerned about falling for something
For someone
It can be a good
It can be bad
Poetry is a one-way ticket
Taking me across oceans
And into the Past
Poetry is a one-way ticket
To meet leaders, scholars, people
From far way lands
From another time
me am i i could never change me odd even if it were forced and bashed yet you, he, she, and them yet you, he, she, and them think me should change but me me begs to differ m is inseparable from e e is glued to m m is glued to e m is equa
Scraped from the wombs
Of a broken child
Screams united with
The new and the old
Fresh fists clenched
Power born
A Girl
As told by doctors
Only looking skin deep
A Boy
The familiar racing of my heart
meant my body was preparing for battle.
I built my walls up, brick by brick, to protect
my already aching heart. Defenses ready,
I heard your sharp footsteps through
I stand
I look the person in the eye
I try to speak
My speech, my performance for whoever happens to be listening, memorized ten thousand times over
Compulsions undescribed
No outlet for emotions
A cage of my own making
But I forgot the door
Tick tock
Goes the clock
Ticking my thoughts away
Deeper and deeper inside my cage
My skin is tan,
in the communtiy I'm from
things like poetry, the arts, music
aren't worth for much.
Being a lawyer,
doctor, dentist, or nurse
is what you need to do
I like saying that poetry is in my blood.
My mother is a poet, and I'm proud of this fact.
Although I haven't read many of her poems, my mother has shown me her favorite poems and some of her other works.
All our lives, we have been told to lies.
To succeed in life, you must "think outside the box."
But... what if thinking is the box? My goodness, what a paradox!
For depression had overtaken
But left me unshaken;
As introduced to Robert Frost,
I had not been forsaken.
I took to heart the rhymes of words,
And flourished by my thoughts,
A warm light cuddles the plain surface of the wood
Plain and simple, it sits there expressionless
The poetry came to me like a strom
The topics and the words come to me and everythings just follow together like water and fits like a puzzel
Its is easy for me to be able to get words out and to get someone to hear me
We walk in others shadows, and wallow in our defeat. If they can only see. To see . What is it to really see? To look past the makeup,to look past the face, and look through the heart . But how can I see when I don't face their faces.
O Saraswati, seated on a swan
Lotus in hand, and clad in white
Mother of speech and verse,
I salute you in your voice.
Born in the palm of the Mother
And raised on her nectar
This happened recently.
I don’t know where my dream is.
But I can hear it singing
Somewhere…
Wop baba lumop a wap bam boom
It sounds so close to me.
Should I leave?
The paper screams
for me to reunite him with his love.
The paper and the pencil,
they seem like the perfect pair.
Who am I to keep them apart?
I fill his empty lines with dark letters,
There was always something inside
longing to be let out,
A prisoner, confined behind a ribcage
A voice silenced
keeping close everything pushed down deep.
Speak!
Blinding Lights-
Intercoms screeching-
a Plenum of Chaos-
Amorphous assort;
The accouters on my back-
which I have worn Three Suns now-
have become Uncomfortable-
Stiff and Stale-
I used to write about God
In all his glory
I praised him through poetry
I used to write about every beautiful thing
This life had to offer
And it made you so happy
But I gave it all up
Poetry one day came knocking at my door,
And I wasn’t ready or anything.
Reluctantly I let it in, for
It was nothing, just a fling.
And I wasn’t ready or anything
My pen moved to tell words unspoken
Maybe I will heal myself.
Perhaps it could be me, or else,
Maybe it will be the paper and the pen
That could finally fill me with zen.
Spring-
A time in which
All is renewed-
When Life is born-
And the Flowers of
the Cherry Blossoms Bloom-
Vibrant Shades
of Blushing Hues-
Like those that Grace
The clock-
moving forward with
the world-
The Gears rotating with a simple click
'Tock-
Tock-'
The hand flicks-
Bit-by-Bit-
Inch-by-Inch-
Closer and Closer;
Eyes Staring blankly-
Skin cold and milky-
rose-tinted lips always smiling-
You are Beautiful;
You are Treasured;
You are Pampered;
H.O.W.E.V.E.R.--
I write to let people know the real me, not the one their minds made me up to be.
If you really knew me, you'd know after my parents divorce ,my mother became mentally abusive.
When it rains, it pours
- I never understood the meaning before.
A few months ago when embarking on an Adventure of a Lifetime,
I figured it out on night two of nine.
We have been conditioned, molded, into believing that everyone is to be the same.
Like cookie dough cut repeadeatly by the same cookie cutter.
Roll out, cut.
Roll out, cut.
Over and over again.
Writing, for me
was always a form of controversy.
I am set to be a doctor,
a researcher,
a doer of good.
But books and language
set me apart.
Gave me wings,
let me escape.
When my stories were too bare,
When my letters were too long,
When all my thoughts were a-tumble,
My poetry was there.
When rhyming was appealing,
When friends would not hush up,
under my spine, the tiniest voice mumbles that it is
okay
for me to move on.
catharsis at 1800 hours
words ease the ache yet make the sting worse
The same time,
The same day,
a yellow spiral journal.
I was in the 4th grade;
We had to write something
anything
for a grade.
I put pencil to paper
and I wrote
and I wrote.
I wrote my first poem when I was six.
It was about how grandmas smell like
vanilla and cinnamon sticks.
When I was ten, I wrote about my
mother's love and how my friend was
I'm nine years old
and what do you know?
I got these feelings,
how do I show?
At the computer I sit
and out my fingers, poems flow.
One, then two, four, five, ten,
You were the habit I had to learn to quit
because in your perfect world I was a terrible fit.
You saw me as a game, a challenge, a dare,
you wanted to see how much you could get me to care.
I am not good at feeling.
Courage was never my strong suit.
Right now, I am working on healing.
People know me as the “mute”.
tap. tap. tap. tap.
pen against paper.
thoughts against head.
the question swirls around
and around and around
like a beginning
with no be.
Rain-
Persistent and cold-
Grays this world
of Concrete and Metal
that You and I live in.
It starts out small-
a fine falling mist-
Before it quickly grows
I try, try, and try though I’ve failed too much
Try to take it slow, there’s no need to rush
Rest and relax, you earned every bit
You don't know me
You don't know the first thing about me
You think I'm a good student? Hah!
You think I have friends? Hah!
You think I'm happy! Hah! Hah!
You don't know me at all
True love’s kiss, first experienced through written words.
First of all kinds memorialized in the pages between her fingers.
At home with the ink stained paper.
A fat black girl in a skinny white woman’s world
That’s where it all started
Looking to be accepted into society’s standards
Never finding myself aimed towards the target
12th grade…
Head so full of thoughts,
Fingers throbbing, leaping off the keyboard,
Escape,
Let your words lead me,
School brought you to me.
And out of the blue:
I discovered my skill and
Uncovered a passion true.
I remember when you would hold me close
And whisper how much you love me
I remember when he gave you a rose
And it filled you with such glee
I was alone,
Cramped in my mind,
Displaced,
Unheard,
Seeking some attention i probably didnt deserve,
I was alone with a pen, a piece of paper and my thoughts,
Swarming,
Devouring Me,
"Be strong, work hard" is what they tell you when they cannot help you
The world is a big place but I never got a VIP pass
I will work twice as hard and struggle still more
To get half as much, if that
She was marked from birth,
Peculiar marks on her hands.
One was dark,
The other light.
One hand broke toys,
The other repaired.
One hand pushed her mother away,
Cardboard boxes, packing paper,
Tape to hold it all in place.
Carpet indents in sets of four
Where furniture used to fill the space.
Blinded,
Bound,
By nothing (to define it).
Colors fell away
As quickly as the Aspen leaves,
Who'd played in costumes of death for a day.
Words, they grasped
Putting pen to paper she bleeds, Words flowing fast and free. Feelings once tangled up Now unwinding. All the anger, All the pain. Her heartache, Her grief, Her loneliness.
I was simply in it for the thrill
I was nimbly in it with a quill
Every time i had chills
Every rhyme had skill
Honey I would dream at times
Of a pocket full of money and a heart full of dimes
Silent as the desert nightThe cacti stood alone,Wading through the sands of children,Plac
There grew a tree in my yard,
Planted by Eve,
Roots seven years deep.
Then I came.
There grew a tree in my yard,
The humble abode,
Happy
Wanting to convey that taste of childhood...bliss,
Before it slips
Through
My hands gripping the bars-
Look outside your lovely white laced window pane
Hike up that towering mountain in your world’s brightest sunrise
Let the morning air lift your saddening night’s lost war
Gagged and bound by what’s around me
Heightened senses, yet couldn’t see
Heart beating so fast my ribs could break
The nausea making my stomach ache
Alone in the corner with no salvation in sight
Anguish is plastered on her face
Like fragile, etched glass.
She smiles and pushes herself,
But is surrounded with frightful fragments
It is large, round, and yellow; just like the sun.So you called it a sunflower.Could you please explain your wisdomto the scientistswho name things so small they can't be seenwith names so long I cannot spell them.I think grades across the US woul
i never expected my life to be taken over by words rhymes stanzas i logged into the computer i typed my fingers dancing pressing buttons forming words rhymes stanzas endless metaphors for pain love tragedy my thoughts swimming in my blood pourin
At seventeen I work two damn jobs,At seventeen I am paying on my own car,At seventeen I think I am an adult,All at seventeen.
What mystery pervades a well!
–– Emily’s supposition.
And I, like the others,
Could only but raptly listen.
Off on an adventure
Aboard this ship
Against the waves
During a horrid storm
Among the saliors
Near land I pray
But the captain says we're far
Until this storm passes
We wil not go
moonscape
.
rot and genesis
come and
come
neither comfort nor
fear
follows
the fleshy pink mind
soon and
soon
full
, now
empty, black
infinite
I’ve spent countless hours of my life thinking and brooding,
Considering the complexities of my past relations.
And it is during these times, with my emotions moving,
Which cause more oft than not unsightly ruminations.
Tears freely flowing, constantly broken. I use a pen to stitch up my soul.
I am a poet.
I write to have my words take
reign over your attention
and speak to you without ever
physically being in front of you.
I write to make each word
bore into your eyes
it was like clay:
a keyboard.
molded everything she wanted to say.
when she was bored
had a desire to record
needed a sword
or a place to explore
poems were that medium.
What?
You want input from me?!
Oh,
Just have me organize reality.
Quicker thinking.
I can't afford to be lazy.
Which words work?
What do you need to hear from me?
This is it.
Gnarled fingers folded in silent stillness
Never again to interlock with another’s hand
Enchanting eyes closed in blatant finality
Never again to twinkle with adventure
The night is black as the Dead Sea,
As waves of emotions crash over me.
The stars glisten in the skies above,
As I wish for only a taste of love.
To a dear poet I once knew,
Poetry.
Rhythm woven from strings of metaphor
displaying everyday occurences
as vibrantly as a marquee.
Words painting pastels with splashes of
deep heavy reds and
bright sunshiny yellows.
Pain held on for years to come
Questioning what's been done
Completely tired of feeling incomplete
My happiness is something that just can't be
So I write, I write to release the pain
When I was little I awoken from a nap.
There I heard some odd and unusual yap.
I glared out the window and what do I see, my uncle and my brother doing something strange, it seemed to me.
Shel Silvestein insied poety into my life,
Without those books I would be in strife.
The poems he wrote filled me with joy,
It wa almost like having a toy.
Shel Silverstein was funny and cool,
Through tears and fears
you've held me near
in sleepless nights
and morose days
you wisk me away
with trails of ink
you lead the way
and help me think
of better times
Poetry is my blood,
and tears,
and my everything,
stained inky black and swirled on paper.
Poetry isn’t simply a way to say things beautifully,
Broken girl meets broken poet,Pieces stick back together,Open hearts speak louder than actions,Hands may not have touched, But fate
Ink flowing, forming into images of many meanings,
Were never meant for someone as I.
The liquid never seemed appealing
As its grotesque limbs crawled into the cracks on my skin,
My corset of secrets
Is growing tighter
What was once a hug
Has become a noose
Tight
Too tight
I can't
B R E A T H E
Where some wear their corset
Purest Poetry in motion
Is observing life’s commotion
Then finding words
Smooth as lotion.
Poetry restores a cracked surface,
And reunites me with my purpose.
You may want to scream,
Shout,
Cry.
Though you can't,
Not anymore.
Instead, you pick up a pen,
You write out your frustration.
Let your voice scream,
Shout,
And cry for you.
I laughed with Billy Crystal
Because I too am a modern day cowboy.
Armed with a pen and paper
I wrangle the words,
Capture their essence,
And affix them to the page.
Up again,
Awake and aching for a change,
A shift in the vicious circle,
Where life takes all prisoner,
And leaves nothing but stones
In the ground.
Don't make a sound
The love of the game can bring you all the fame,
but it can tear you down and bring you shame.
When that shame comes, you must learn to deal.
If you cannot deal, then you will not heal.
Becoming a poet was kind of an accident
Like everything, I bumbled and fumbled
And somehow landed where I am now.
It started with stumbling over a meeting
In the library with a couple people I knew
Look at me
Look at my eyes
Look at my nose
Look at my thighs
Look at my lips
Look at my color
They all have one thing in common
I was always an artist first
but words were just a new kind of paint
Not so much a visual medium
and not so much music
but something in between
With words dripping out of my fingers
Friends come and go
Buh the feelings never change
our eyes only open
In the midst of all our pain
We're so focused on ourselves
I hover over the paper, back arched
I force myself to feel
Anger
Love
Happiness
I make myself feel everything
I don’t know why
But I have to write
Writing is freedom
It hurts, we know.
You just want this pain to go.
You often cry, we can tell.
We all know you’re going through h*ll
We wish we could stop it, but where do we start?
Perhaps what is needed is a change of heart
It all started a long time ago. It happened so suddenly that I didn't even know. With my pen in hand, I was finally able to understand. I had the power to conquer all with something so small.
I don't do well with groups and crowds,
they make me want to scream out loud,
but when I write,
I make it right,
I find the voice I never had,
and though some may see it sad,
I like it better this way.
For most people smogs are an unusual sight
But for me it's a part of my usual plight
It's air so dense it can choke you
Too thick to see your way through
Easy to get lost; not easy to be found
My closest friends are the pen and the page. They take my rage and the war waged on my Sanity
The conflict brought by our no longer use of Humanity.
How could it be that we can not see the
Travyvon Martin and Mike Brown helped me find poetry,
Overwhelming emotions controlled me and took hold of me,
Until I wrote my thougthts out for the world to see,
A pathway to discover the inner me,
Drifting in a languid landof singing prairies and crystalline lakes,I wander toward a jeweled tree, radiant sapphire and ruby in a halcyon dream.
Now I know writing songs doesn't seem like poetry to some
"Poetry rhymes, poetry comes from the heart," they say
And they're right
But the beautiful thing about poetry is that it doesn't have to rhyme like a song
I hear the screams
I smell the breath
I feel the spit
It is dark but there is no doubt
It is there
It gets louder and louder and louder
I open my eyes and see different darkness
Then it stops
Why do I write poetry? It allows you to set your mind free.
It can tell a story in pages, or merely in a few sentences.
Whatever style you desire, free verse or a strict rhythm.
Poems can be about anything and anyone.
It's growing.
Bigger, nastier, uglier. And it's sore as hell.
I dived head first into a brown bottle, even had ice but, it still continued to swell.
Self medicating, personal antidotes,
Why Poetry?
Why poetry, they say?
Maybe it's because I don't know how to formulate these thoughts into full sentences.
Cause twenty tabs are open;
That one song won't stop playing.
What can I say out loud for all to hear?
About the words that I hold dear.
For someone that has always been quiet and shy,
It is hard to tell you why.
My Life as a Poet
By: Destini Johnson
Poetry is like DNA it's embedded into you.
It’s like a song that you never forget.
Poetry is how I express myself.
Poerty is how I release stress off myself.
I woke up today
To see my life fade away
All my feelings would dissappear
To be replaced by fear.
It's the lack of change that hurts the most
A monatonous life might as well be a ghost
There were words to say but no one to care.
At the end of the day, I couldn't see anyone there.
Life had me down, at times it was killer.
The old me wasn't around, couldn't even feel her.
I see the world
Through lenses sprinkled with hazelnut and almond
that magnify the beings that surround me.
Sometimes, my mind gets too scrambled:
Too caught up in crying children and chopped-down trees,
As inhalation occurs, your mind is scanning, panning, and planning
High pitch squeals and commotion amongst people occur
Your fingers itch and twitch and launch for your pocket
I have been betrayed by my mouth
Speaking out loud seemed trite.
Ideas ran deep through my head like a river down south,
“Take this class,” says my advisor.
Poetry? I think. Ugh, fine.
More reading stuff I can’t understand—
How exciting.
First day of class.
Four anthologies—that’s too much!
But
Thoughts that float within my mind
Hints of ideas I dream up at night
Emotional moments and far away dreams
Come to existence within poetry.
How do I explain the darkness
Darkness surrounded her, day and night.
Insidious, alluring, luminescent flowers floating here and there,
Offering counterfeit promises of peace.
Sickingly sweet voices called out to her,
Your combat boots,
The roots of our future,
They say it's too early,
But for us we'll never know,
Yea, I guess I'm too young,
But if you ask I'll say yes,
Two months, four, and six now,
Pen to paper, thoughts start to mound;
I'm paralyzed in their screaming sound.
They circle, again, circle around
and push me deeper until I'm drowned.
I listen to their ceaseless pound
Through tangled thoughts festering about,
I am able to create something without doubt
Of what others may think of my mangled mind
Because of what I write is what I feel on the inside.
I still remember when I saw you
Sweat so sweet and eyes so bright
My heart froze instantly at your sight
But my head knew what you would do
I still remember when you said my name
Well she was the girl everyone expected her to be.
Nice, soft, quietly speaking.
Never made a sound.
Somewhere along the way I fell in love,
With words and rhyme and metaphor.
It was somewhere between reading
Robert Frost and singing Emily Dickinson.
The word Poetry
Makes me laugh.
I do not know how to make an entry,
Nor do I know where it ends on my behalf.
I thought I'd be like them,
Those people that taught themselves how to write.
The swinging of the
swing
hits the mental wall
that hold in feelings
and all at once
slowly
it breaks
leaking color
leaking words
leaking feeling
leaking poems
At the playground the kids
climb up the slide,
glide down the pole,
dart across the bridge,
and drop off the monkey bars
while playing zombie tag.
Sometimes I sit at my window and stare at the world beyond,
wondering how we will remember each moment as time flies.
I ask, I dream, I ponder, but silence is the only response.
Imagine having everyone know your
Deepest thoughts
Darkest moments
All your mistakes
That’s what they do
They pour their heart out
And leave it all on the page
Covered by doubt
And cradled by love.
Slapped by reality
And stitched by expectations
Caged by his voice
Swallowed by his hurt.
Running on a track
I ran through the wood,
snapping moldy twigs
and low-living branches.
The wind weathered
at my shoulders,
carrying the cries
of the rustling leaves,
the mellow wailing
I am able to escaoe into realities unknown to me.
I am able to imitate the emotions written.
I am able to lie to myself yet tell the truth to others
I am able to create fantasy and reality
Emily
She could not stop for Death
Neither could I
She could not let go
Neither could I
She tought me "be who I be"
I will be me
She told me "see what I see"
I see
Breath of soul, letters untold;
Expression of confessions that can't be spoken,
Yet no one knew that I was so broken.
I write to say things better left unsaid,
And bring about life inside me that was once dead.
The cage is open
My mind is free
The shackles have fallen
I can finally be me
This pen is my sword
This paper is my shield
My life has been changed
I am now free
Free to breathe
They hung their words in the air with
colors
tangible
"look"
I looked and read the world
colors
breathing air
breathing colors
books exploded air and I
breathed
"look"
Meaning.
Fills life and keeps it away from despair,
And darkness that constantly fills the damp air.
Sometimes the meanings infront of your face,
And sometimes the meaning will be found in an unknown place.
'Tis what exudes from my melancholic oppression
A despondency self induced by my reprieve of joy
As it leaves my being, it sets me free
Free from my own expressive suppression
When I write, I see me
The true me, the real me
I don't see a writer with a pen and paper
I see Van Gogh with painting a self portrait
Or a young girl with no makeup looking in the mirror
When I look at the world around me,
I see a world full of restraints;
restraints placed on me by my parents,
restraints placed on me by the law,
restraints from finances,
restraints from my boss,
You, me, and poetry..
Words along a page, rhythm crooked and spaced
Did she mean to rhym or is that word just misplaced
To me poetry is a hidden emotional pursuit
Secluded in my mind, there are thoughts of a time,
A time where I didn't worry.
A time thoughts of evil, frustration, and scrutiny had me feeling blurry;
So I scurried,
I haven’t written a poem in two months,and what that means isthis body of mine suffers from inundation,like the Nile I sw
At one point in my life,
I lacked things to do,
So I pulled out an old journal,
And that I went through,
I read the poetry I used to write and figured,
that if back then I could write,
Poetry is a song
A quiet melody in the throng
A low note in the noise that makes us strong.
Poetry is a beat
A steady cadence in the fleet
A common surge in the heart that makes us meet.
Unwilling, Unforgiving, Everlasting,
Darkness exhumed my body
Intoxicated by nothing,
A monster overcame
Survived by nothingness,
Indisposed
Time corroding mortality,
I remember the day
When I had a lot to say
Not yet knowing Jesus as the Way
So my first thought wasn’t to pray
I didn’t know God was real
And He could help me with the way I feel
I am from the stars of red
that streak across the flag
And I am from the crimson stripes
that ran down the King's back.
I am from the dirt and mold-
the beginning of the end.
Let me write to you the injustices
When my mother’s words resound in my head
A young girl with wounds to mend --No stitches. No bandaids. Only a pen.
"What does this do?" she asked herself.She picked it up then retrieved paper from the shelf.
Ink spots litter my fingers; I see the beauty of words,
Words,
In jumbled messes, scattered all over what, once, used to be a blank sheet.
I heard it once and stole my soul,
Its deep, soft melody felt like home.
I tried and close my eyes,
My dream is my own
It is my own to control
My own path to create
My goal to become
It can't be altered by my mother
It can't be decided by my father
Friends and people all around
THE darkness engluffed me
I wanted to cut...
but a voice inside
said "I could not"
so I reached for the paper
and found a blue pen
that is where my stroy began.
I wrote to fill a void.
Poetry is the sound of a slaming doorEchoed through dark skies and dim street lightsThe sound that says "You are aloneBut someone is always watching"
Poetry is the cold grip of a brothers hand
Poetry is the sound of a slaming doorEchoed through dark skies and dim street lightsThe sound that says "You are aloneBut someone is always there"
Poetry is the cold grip of a brothers hand
Some lessons in school
Come and go
Others however
Help you to reap and sow
Poetry is a tool that
Has many uses
The reason I love it, it helps
Cope with life’s abuses
I was 8 years old the first time I decided that I liked when my words had a little bit of rhyme
But when I was 8 years old I also really liked dinosaurs
Poetry will always be my first love,
No matter how great I become in math, science, history,
There is always a place in my heart for the art of words,
it was
innocence
nursery rhymes
read as we fell asleep
cinquains, haikus
A, B, A, B, C
projects typed
fresh from a word document
prompts and clear curricula
You,
You are like the fireflies in the summer,
Always lighting up when I’m not around.
Taunting me with your height and the way you reach for the sky.
Me,
I am like a blade of grass.
You want to know how I got these scars?
I swallowed my arrogance, but little did I know it would claw its way back up my throat and into my mouth, cutting off every cry for help I could’ve managed.
Saturday morning again, and the bees are wanting to settle into our c-l-a-v-i-c-l-e-s.
Writing is a passion,
One that I have with much haste.
and compassion.
If I could,
I would write every morning,
anything I would,
poems, stories, scripts, adorning.
Life gave me the motions but without the vibrations
Melancholy attacked and my soul was in constant isolation
Life was a chess board and my king was checkmated
You stay silent and tell no one assuming they never related
She with the lion's mane-
She with her head in the clouds
had always been one to suppress her thoughts
in hopes to just fade in the crowds.
As she grew, as she learned
Music. Poetry with notes. But isn't poetry already
Musical
Lyrical
Spiritual
Beautiful
Beautiful. What is beauty?
Is it you?
Is it me?
Is it humanity?
Depression is nothing more than a blackened room
In the middle, a small candle, penetrates the gloom
But I'm on the far side, stuck in my bed
I can't move with all these demons screaming in my head
The chaos inside me churns-
the noise, the pain, the frustration.
A blank page, a sharpened pencil
are so enticing.
The words flow from my mind,
spill on to the paper.
Rough around the edges,
When I write, I am loud
The clicking of the keys and scratching of the bleeding pen
is louder than the thunder
and the tigers
and the rain
and the righteousness
The screams I can’t get out
When my hands hurt from writing so long,
Burning from quickly writing down thoughts,
Creating every feeling onto paper,
Not able to stop expressing my feelings
The only way I knew how to.
A wasted death,one I did not believe. But Death alas, I had received. The darkness came and did deceive, A darkness devil, all conceived. On troubled thoughts that I
A man lie alone in bed, night after night, as death whispers in the ear to his right
An angel choir sings softly, in the ear to his left,
Until they fought in the middle because that's where they met.
Your playing. your mocking
it echos through the room
Where we once made love, it's
now making dust
Your smiles, your laughs
will nver vanish from my heart
Because your failures, I eased
My mindset is a thunderstorm. In the darkness I am lost and blinded by a storm cloud. There is, however, some hope for this natural disaster.
So she thought she was popular.
She was kind, she was funny.
So she thought.
So they thought she was stupid
She was fat, and she was trying to be what she is not.
She they thought.
We have been best friends since second grade
Now it’s the end of our freshman year
I don’t understand
It’s like you replaced me
With words on a screen
You make me want to scream
I don’t need their hypocrisy
Nor their drugs
Or more therapy
All I need is for someone to free me from this hell I'm living
This chaos erupting from inside of me as my inner demons try to chain me down.
The cello sings me to sleep
The saddest, most beautiful voice I've ever heard
Notes carefully composed into a tragedy that floats through the room with ease
It lulls me into oblivion
Although the white chickens have run their course,
the lilacs have regrown,
and the spear-arm days have passed by,
the flowers of today are still in tune.
You, me, go?
My english is broken english
Like a snail trying to reach its destination
Like a baby has spoken its first word
I'm not a perfection or a pro.
Nowhere to express,
It comes as suddenly as a cool gust of breeze.
All at once I'm overwhelmed with nerves.
Soothed by the dripping hum of the honey bees.
Cradled by mother nature's curves.
This is my first language, and the only one I truly understand.
My mind is a deep and vast canvas that can never be filled.
A black hole.
I write because it is the only thing I'll ever know.
Oblivious.
It's not just pen and paper
and words on a page.
It's freeing your heart
from its barbed wire cage.
It's the feeling you get
when you can finally breathe
after drowning for years
Poetry
What does it mean
Words… rhythm… flow
Yes you guess
I express
What I attest to… thee
You see I made a decision
Way back when
To tell a story
Through feelings
I see a blank paperand feel sorry for it.It is a zombie;Lifeless, unconcious, and hungry for brains.
With mind full, ready to burst,Pencil poised and ready.Once was hungry, filled with thirst,but now is sure and steady. Thoughts and ideas pour in and flow out.The dots all connecting.Of my efforts, there can be no doubt.My voice clearly projecting
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In third grade,
They handed me a poetry book
And I found it terribly boring.
I was a child of prose, reading stories of adventures
And faraway lands.
A heavy heart and broken smile is all I have to offer
My weary eyes and sensitive ears hide from the truth
The sweet taste of fear, the putrid scent of peace
The soft touch of hostility, the scandalous sound of grace
There was a time when only two things kept me afloat.Music, and Poetry.When daddy was downing shots and doing drugs,And the lawyers wouldn't believe mom.When daddy's new wife beat my little sister with a brush,
This easy going softhearted girl,
smiles as though shes fine as ever.
Listening to the screams of the innocent children,
she pertends that everything is alright.
This easy going softhearted girl,
Words she never spoke,
Creep in her head.
Pound in her heart.
Scream in her mind.
Wanting to be heard.
But with her lips shut,
Her mind damaged,
And her heart pained;
Words
They can break one down or build one up
If written correctly one can spin a tale of wonder and peace
Words can be used to set people free
An outlet for pain, frustration, and loneliness
There is a freedom that comes with the pen.
The scribbles across the page
Create mountains and rivers of emotion
Lethal as a paintbrush.
Words are my paints.
Scribble, scribble, scribble.
Building up and drowning me
these emotions
I need
to breathe
Yet
Discouraging and suffocating my emotions
these people
I need
to breathe
Still
Why poetry?
I guess it's for those rainy days when you've got sunshine in your heart.
I guess it's for those sunny days when you've got thunderstorms in your head.
Poetry is for giving yourself to someone else.
Poetry to me
Is a way to express myself
Within the Ink of a Pen, the Lines of a paper.
It amazes me, how much I can fit in one sheet of paper
In just a few words, or a lot
And how much feeling I can convey
It started with that movie.
That one with Morgan Freeman.
As the opening credits rolled in,
that voice came into my ears.
Like soft grating gravel.
Invictus.
When things get tough and I don't know what to do
I pick up a piece of paper and a pen, too
My thoughts and feelings glide across the page as my pen does,
Others say talk it out, but I know that I must
Poetry.
What is Poetry, they ask?
Is it like the ocean, how it flows? How you can hear the waves crash?
Or like the television, visualizing everything outside of your home?
There is a moment, when a spark thunders down, when all I need is a glass and no sound.The first moment like it, which no one could predict, was, for me, when everything clicked.
I can’t be me
So am I not free?
I want to reach the sun
And show everyone how it is done
But, I am not free
Therefore, I am not me
I want to be a burning star
Cancer came like a shadow One day I woke up and it was sitting on my couch It had been watching me all night Staring silently, speaking slowly. Waiting for the moment when I would realize its presence.
I cried for weeks.
Couldn't seem to find the energy,
didn't know how pain could become something,
until I used it as my bandaid
and beneath it bloomed poetry.
We tell ourselves to feel less
There is a rhyme and reason
A plan and a time
But, sometimes, nothing comes together
The words don't make sense
The lines become blurred
And I'm left to wonder what it's worth
We've been taught to hide behind prose So that no matter what the words say nobody truly knows What's going through our heads Ever hour until we finally turn in to our beds.
some people strike oil when they dig deep
for me it was words
each time a drill bit hit
me, bored a hole
in my soul with unkind words,
unwant, I wrote,
to have some form of pain that
Today as I went about my Saturday ritual of housekeeping,
I found my lost love for the laundry and the orange peel therein
And again at midday for the sanitized scent of the dishwasher
Words slapped me in the face
With their crimson fury
Without hesitation I let them envelop me
Watering myself in a shower of emotion
Poetry is
Past present future
Was
Will be
Past present future
As some one with few talents
Poetry is my
Past present future
Past
A little girl
Alone
Sometimes
You find yourself asking the question:
Was it me?
Sometimes
You wonder if it could've gone differently
Was it me?
It started with a phone call.
November of 2013 -
I have a best friend from back home - Dayton, Texas
Her name is Jordan.
Jordan got a new neighbor
Drugs, weapons, and poverty from here to there
As a kid you only come up for air
Fighting girls released some tension
But everydays a struggle not to mention
You can yell, scream, cry but it doesn't make it better
Reality is somewhere I can never be free.
Its where you keep me from being me.
I’d give almost anything to be free.
I’m only human, what do you expect from me?
I’ll never be free.
So many feelings I just couldn't get out of my head
So many words that were ending up unsaid
They were bottled up inside me and I was ready to explode
I speak of the masks I hide behind.
It's not just me--
it's everyone.
It's anyone who wants to be accepted
for once in his or her life.
I speak of the boy who came home crying
Vicious. like nothing ever before.
Cries of help echoing through the streets as she taken.
Abused. Forgotten.
Every last right stripped away.
No one knew where he took her.
Poetry means expression,
Creation of a better world,
A chance to be myself.
In a world as constricting as this one,
Poetry is an escape,
Poetry is being able to step out of the spotlight you involuntarily occupy 24/7.
It's what allows a 6'4", 315 pound young man be himself instead of what everyone expects him to be.
sad times are hard comfort is needed we wish for that soft pillow to cry into for that strong shoulder paper can be your pillow pen can be your shoulder we read to understand to hope one feels the way we do opening a book to get assurance that
The written word never seemed meant for me.
Lines and dots were all I could see.
But then my Mother would read to me every night.
And soon I wanted to also read and write.
Books alone could open any door.
She could hear me dry heaving
Pens and needles
That my aching chest was
Bleeding
The blood
Red, black, and blue
Ink
From my heart and
Eyes
Gripping onto the edge
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be astronaut. And a ballerina. And a movie star. And the president. I imagine we all wanted these things at one time or another during our childhoods.
