Tag Archives: blank verse

Essay

Three Quotes to Live By – Alex Esterline

Springtime, for me, is a time of renewal and self-improvement. I get this newfound motivation from watching the snow melt. Much like the flowers that will begin budding on the trees, I find myself attempting to plant seeds in myself. One way I’ve been doing that is by picking out some important quotes to keep in my mind. The three I’ve picked are the three I try and live by at all times. I’ll be sharing them with you and I hope they’ll help you sort some things out or reach for something higher:

 

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

-A.A. Milne

Written by the author of a childhood classic, this Winnie-The-Pooh author writes a beautiful quote. I have a tendency to look back too much and wish for things that won’t ever come back. I regularly fall in love with places and feelings that I might not get to re-visit. At first glance, this quote reminds me to be grateful for having experienced these moments and feelings at all. But it’s become such a big part of my life that it actually reminds me to take in every moment from now on in great detail- so that I can one day look back and marvel at how hard it was to say goodbye. I hope it does the same for you, Reader.

 

“Cause a little trouble. It’s good for you.”

-Angelina Jolie

I’d first like to take a moment to thank Angelina Jolie for existing. I’d also like to thank her for her recent quote at the Kids’ Choice Awards. Her quote focuses on something that I have yet to accomplish- living far outside my comfort zone. You see, my idea of “trouble” is staying on Tumblr for 4+ hours. I’m going to try and use this quote to remind myself to not overthink every single decision I make. The best part about this quote is how much everyone could use it. We’re constantly being confined and sheltered to the point where our lives are sometimes so unexciting. Maybe next time, I won’t stay up until three in the morning doing homework, only to get no sleep. Beyond just worrying about good grades (which do not define a person), I am generally compliant with things that I do not necessarily agree with. This quote will serve as inspiration to speak up and act for things that I believe in.

 

“Don’t count the days, make the days count”

-Muhammad Ali

A professional boxer, Ali shines light on one of the hardest obstacles to deal with in life- Time. This quote seems to remind me of my fleeting youth and the oftentimes overwhelming desire for something to happen. I tend to lack patience (something I’m working on), and regularly “count the days”. I realize now, that I should be focusing that same energy on cherishing those days that I’m counting. I firmly believe, now, that if you count the days- you’ll miss each and every one of them. I urge you to take every opportunity that comes your way, and start making the rest of your life count.

 

I hope you take these words of wisdom and apply them to yourself. Happy spring!

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Poetry

One On My Mind – Brooke Safferman

 

Dancing into the twilight,

Stars ablaze, much like your wide-open heart

Twirling into oblivion, you are the only

One on my mind

 

Gold and red and silver and bronze

Fistfuls of thick hair that I’m always so honored to

Touch

In the morning light, By the fireside, with the hot chocolate and the blueberry pancakes

We’re all slightly overcooked but without a flaw, all the same, you are the only

One on my mind

 

Curled up in Paradise on a couch,

books are the only sand and sun we need

we pay no matter to the clocks on the wall

the only ticking is the sound of our heart beating

one heart, we are two of the same and you are the only

One on my mind

 

And the bliss is never-ending.

You respect me on the days when I don’t even want to look at myself, and

You know about things I never would have dreamed of:

Palindromes and the perfect angel food cake; crossword puzzles and blanket forts

But even with all of this newfound knowledge, well, you are the only

One on my mind.

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Poetry

Search for Equilibrium – Haley Ingram

Keep calm.

Remain vigilant.
The throbbing in your lungs means nothing
To the gasping breath
Of your heart.
Each cracked burn on your
undead fingertips
Kiss the surface of heated glass
Inflaming your throat
Neck bent at exactly 45 degrees
You cringe and smile.
Your teeth eroded from the love I thought you carried in every undefined
Empty space in your body.
The acid creeping up the outside of your veins.
Vexation and tribulation scratching, crying, screaming, kicking.
Providing you with enough fluidity to drown,
But they are just holding hands.
Just as we used to when we were content with confinement.
When we were young. Foolish. We grew like the grass we whispered our dreams into and the dandelions I caressed against my cheeks to show you how gentle life can be.
And the kisses we’d exchanged like a currency of requited endearment meant nothing by the time I was meant to be maintained while you,
You just never grew.
You haven’t grown anything since the day I gave you the seed
I planted it in your heart,
See, its just for you please let my
Blooms nip at the disease you clog
Their stems with.
You hopeless tyrant.
You water them with the distaste of alcohol.
Keep calm.
Remain vigilant.
Our hands may have branched off
But my lungs never stopped beating for you
And every exhale my heart takes
Prepares me for an inhale of you captivation.
Petals may shatter like the shards of glass
You insist on gardening with
But you’ve never had the greenest thumbs
In fact you’re irately purple
Go outside
Take a moment
Breathe.
Lift your hands to the clouds reach for the time escaping us at every given second-
I can’t comprehend never being there on time
To hold you.
Pill popping may be just as sweet as the innocence you once had or the sanity I protected but that was stolen from us
And you’ve never felt more violated
From me grabbing your hips,
Or Tasting your body.
Because I don’t even have a tongue to say the words I’ve never thought.
Mouth sewn shut
Remain vexed
Calm keepings
You molested my smile and gave it a new name
You called it beauty.
You dismantled the arbitrary seclusion
Of my sanity
Your cold lifeless hands
Choking me
Oxygen is a privilege
To my skin
And you try to hold my hand
But I just can’t give this trepidation
A fair shot.
I kiss my own hands better than anyone
Who has ever held them
I’m rotting at your touch
The abyss of your fingerprints
You burn my flesh
You stunt my growth
I drown in ignorance
So blissful
I tend to my flowers with broken glass
Cut the stems
Force the alcohol into their system
The bitter taste on my lips are not the words I’ve never said
Rather than the words I regret to have ever spoken
Pills sprout a new flower they help me
I am slitting my airways and drowning my veins.
Keep calm.
Remain vigilant.
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Poetry

Heart is Divided – Ugonma Ubani-Ebere

My heart is divided
No longer can I hide it,
My love is a puzzle piece, and I can’t find peace.
Too scared to let my love lines decease.
So I equally give my time
Getting drunk off my quality wine.
Each one holds a special part
If one goes I will break apart.
What is a person to do
When more than one holds the glue
I could tell you that I have not the slightest clue.
The caress of one
The other is fun
Another is aggressive
And another feels as if they’ve already won
I cry at night from my confusion
A heart wrenching, sordid, ploy of revolutions
As I laugh through my delusions
And I come to the conclusion.
That in spite of my affliction
All of them are a depiction
Of something my heart transpires
Something my soul desires
But I know the consequences are dire
Because you always get burned when you play with fire
But like a moth to a flame.
I am entranced all the same.
A wild heart that can never be tamed.
A free soul that refuses to be chained.
I know I will never win in this game.
When you play with matters of the heart
Wounds will be inflicted
Hurt feelings will not be restricted
Words full of bitterness and malice will not be constricted.
My heart is divided,
Only one can make me and it whole
Only one can win me over and mend my beautifully, dark, twisted, and delicious soul.
My heart is divided,
Someone stop me, and pull on my brakes
Because my heart is divided
Only one can win
The other hearts must break.

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Poetry, Prosetry

dynamics – Karlee Sanders

a fortissimo recollection of memories floods my mind with thoughts

I remember your forte screams that directed everything I did

your mezzo forte demands at home for me to grab you a beer or to come to bed
my mezzo piano answers that you’d never hear because you were too busy thinking about the next move you’d make on me to make your wish my command
my piano voice under my breath uttering my hate for you
your pianissimo voice now over the phone from your jail cell
begging me for forgiveness and bail money
only to get a dial tone in return
k.s. 3:15 pm 12/7/14
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Poetry

Dancing by The Moon – Serene Jansen

As expected, you died.

No mysterious tragedy.

I promised I wouldn’t cry.

Vivaciously intertwined with

the untamed, the souls who are alive;

body carried out

with the songs of your life, leaving doubt.

They expected you would die

But you showed me the Moon when I was three.

And you told me to dance for her

because she often felt lonely.

You revealed other things—

how to make mud pies

and why some creatures have wings.

You own some too, they tell me.

They kept saying it was expected.

Even if I can’t accept it,

you died.

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Poetry, Prose, Prosetry

Ending – Haley Ingram

December 23 1888:

Vincent Van Gogh takes a sharp edge against his head Successfully cutting off his ear.

On May 8 1889,

He admits himself into the Saint Paul de Mausole lunatic asylum.

It is here,

In the catacombs of his wax coated, pressed-to-package heart

Where his blood streams the will of his hand creating his most famous, and beautiful masterpieces.

My darling, you are not the dried up paint

Cracked off to flake into the air

Particle by particle

Being inhaled by those unworthy of your scent.

Don’t you ever feel like the symptoms of death-

The left over, missed nibbles of creation.

He ate yellow Paint

We eat yellow Paint

You are my yellow Paint.

The only reason my body has not fallen victim to toxins in my bloodstream

As he did

Is because

You have a direct biological correlation to my happiness

The fumes of paint mix and dance with the fumes of my despair

Organs made canvas

Premature shapes

Colors splattered

Product is you.

You don’t just coat my stomach with prosthetic beauty

You are the irises

You are MY irises

My darling,

I can see the starry view from my asylum window.

I am having my first out of body experience

That will not scar me physically as I shove my hand through the window

Just to try and touch the fire of night.

I look so,

Desperate.

Gasping for a single breath hoping I finally reach the passion

Every time I try to paint starry night it comes out as your face.

I carved it into my skin

Melted my flesh and bone

Molding myself into what beauty could be

But I am a 2D appreciating enthusiast.

I notice the fluorescent lights

pulsating

I think of your eyes and the way they retract and grow as you go from crying to

Discussing the way the flowers in your brain

Tickle the inside of your ears.

May whoever try to rip them from the pores of your skin

Rot in Hell.

Even I in all my idiocy know how

It feels to get lost in the

Tranquil trance of fragrance.

To be completely fine with disarray.

My darling,

You are my music.

I’m chugging gallons of paint closing my ears shut.

Whatever Van Gogh tried to silence

Will not infest my brain

Not while you remain a pesticide.

Not while you’re here.

Whispering. Humming. Kissing.

Breathing

The oxygen from your own plants

Giving me CPR

trying to clean out my lungs hoping my ears pop

But my hands stop you.

You’d make it too easy.

I want to make sure every word that falls into the cavern of my aching body

Leaves a seed that can only be watered by the paint that I feed on.

Insanity for a being.

Insanity for being.

I’ll admit myself.

The view is so nice here.

The view is so pretty here.

Self designed, molded by Pygmalion.

The view is so beautiful here.

July 29, 1890:

Van Gogh dies from two gunshot wounds to the chest from 2 days earlier.

The package, has been opened.

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Poetry

we are not your maids anymore – Alex Esterline

We are not your maids anymore
we are not why you lock up your store
Not your gardeners
not your mechanics
Not your border-hopping, job-stealing fanatics,
Not your microagressions
or your racist misconceptions,
your oppressive lies
or your stereotypes
We are not
The color of our skin
or our “inherited sin”
Your compliance with violence
Will not lead us to silence
For this will be the last time you can take what’s mine
For this will be the last time you can tell me “I’m fine”
“Post-racial America” yet there goes another
Matando Armando, your sister, your brother
Shot dead to the ground, Locked up in the pound
You look all around yet only our love is to be found

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Poetry

Never Be Completed – Brooke Safferman

Somewhere between

The spaces of my fingers

And the regions of my heart that

You and I like to pretend do not exist

Are filled up by the emotions that

I never knew a person could possibly

Feel.

 

Give me a smile,

A nod of approval,

And I will give you

Anything you want.

 

A touch, a glance, a sign of encouragement

You are the unattainable dieting goal;

So insatiable, yet I know I must cut back.

 

Back away,

Somewhere off into the distant land of

Pretend

We used to know the things about each other

That most people would deny but

Let’s be honest – cutting the crap was always your style.

 

Without you,

I am a piece to a puzzle that will

Never be completed.

And without you,

I am always left

wanting more.

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Poetry

Overdose – Alexandra Mayer

The sun drizzled into the sea–

a meeting like butterfly kisses.

 

Soaked in gold,

you curled your fingers into mine

and we wandered into the sky.

 

And I remembered when

Apollo stole turquoise from the swell

to craft your aster eyes

 

And promised me

a life like Spanish guitar

and raspberries.

 

I’ll smear them on my lips

So I can taste like summertime.

And I’ll let my heels char by the stars.

Or maybe, I’ll fall into your soul

And find

Unkempt hair and dandelions.

 

I love you.

Atleast, I think, I could.

 

Now, Sleep won’t follow, so

I walk on words.

The moon carves into my chest.

I’m nothing, but hummingbirds.

 

I feel like 2:00 am

Crumbling into morning,

Laughing at all the tragedy that makes you cry.

 

Light leaks in through the blinds.
The stale and yellowing map sighs.
The universe swells in the gap between your teeth.

 

And I believe in feeling.
Like cigarette burns and crimson.
Like fuck yes, I’m conscious.
Like atoms dripping from your aster eyes.

I used to dance on tombstones.
Now, I’m almost alive.

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