Poetry

Through Their Eyes – Poppy Lam

Through their eye’s everything is magnified,
A light touch is a mighty blow,
A flick of a switch is a raging storm,
A small ember is a seething hell,
They feel the need to convert experiences into masterpieces
Be it photos, drawing, music or writing
It may just be a snap of a camera but it’s their way of capturing their life and seeing it from a new perspective
It may just be a few sketchy lines but it’s how they portray their emotions and discover themselves
It may just be a few notes but it’s their sole way of communicating with the world
It may just be ink to a page but it’s their emotions soaring over the white landscape
The need to fill the obsidian darkness which lingers within
To drop the mask, stand back and watch it shatter
So you go and judge but we won’t be the one’s coughing up the ashes of a burnt out flame.

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Poetry

The Artist – Brooke Safferman

16 colored pencils lay before your handsthey are trembling with anticipation;

you are trembling with anticipation

 

a masterpiece waiting to be revealed

but you are the only one who can manifest it

and make it come to life with the power of your genius mind

 

the clock ticks on and suddenly you shake your head

there’s too much pressure to do the things that must be done

but the desire of making, of creating, of bringing to life, has begun to overtake you

 

dancing, your fingers are dancing as they slide the pencils across the page,

shapes and shades being formed by the colors of passion rather than that of the lead

I, too, originated as one of your masterpieces – and for that, I am forever grateful.

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Poetry, Prosetry

I’m Sorry – Alexandra Mayer

I am from a defeated town
with deadbeat afternoons,

lawn chairs and lemonade,

and church clothes that cling in the heat.

Our bones are heavy.

 

I told you, I loved you like

the shimmering but separate rainbow fish swirl of oil in the puddles of asphalt parking lots.

And then I left.

 

You told me

you wanted to get closer, closer

so we could breath each other in.

 

And then, like that, three years went by

without you.

 

I was in Philosophy of Ethics when I read your facebook status:

“I LIED. AND SO I’LL BE FERRYING THOSE OF YOU I CAN WITH ME TO THE NEXT WORLD. I’LL POST A BRIDGE BEFORE I LEAVE.”

The Professor went on.

Heraclitus once said, “Everything Flows.”

Plato revised: “Everything changes.”

 

I called.

Your voice sounded like a meteor tearing into earth.

I heard wisps of gold cloud your eyes, when you said,

“I’m high. I’m high. If you don’t love me, I’ll hang myself from the rafters of hell.”

 

Silence dangled over us.

Later you told me you could feel it

wrap around your neck

like the noose used on your Grandfather.

 

I didn’t think of that.

I called the police.

I wanted you to be okay.

 

The officer was kind to me.

His voice sounded like velvet.

 

Then, for six nights, the stars dried out my eyes.

They warned me–

‘Only the dead shine.’

 

You called,

finally, from Silver Hill Mental Hospital.

It was your Mother’s Bipolar Disorder that got you there.

But it was your Father’s black skin

that made the officer with a velvet voice

think it was okay to hurt you.

 

I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you told me

he pressed his fists into your gut

and plunged his hands around your neck.

I’m sorry, you had to send me pictures. I still can’t believe you did.

It looked like Jupiter’s rings tried to split you in two pieces.

I’m sorry that I can still drag my fingers across your scars.

 

I just wanted you to be okay

because I saw a life like hydrangeas and summer sunsets in your eyes.

and I remembered the elm tree where we took branches for seats and traded secrets.

And I knew just segments of your soul,

but I could see you’re bursting with a history and a story.

I just wanted you to be okay.

 

But he just saw a black body,

said you were a ‘dangerous madman resisting arrest.’

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Poetry, Prosetry

Perspective of a Man – Karlee Sanders

every sunrise,
every sappy love quote,
could never be as beautiful
as the words her fingers wrote—
in the sky
connecting constellations
to the moon.
maybe it was the way she looked in the night air.
the picturesque white light on her face,
she was all things innocent and as innocuous as she could be.
but when the moonlight fell upon her fair skin,
she was a wildfire of blue and purple mixed with the almost fluorescent light and soft brown in her eyes and hair.
she could’ve outshone the sun.
not a soul on this planet could ever convince me that she was flawed in any way.
the way she touched my hands ever so carefully made me feel intoxicated with the inane butterflies she always rambled about.
when our eyes met that night, we were a part of the same dark sky we wore on our shoulders.
we were stars.
and nothing else mattered.
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Poetry

rain & i – Elena Barrera-Waters

it’s 5:56 in the morning

(on a weekend)
and the rain is pounding
and it’s loud
and the windows are shaking, even if only a little.
it’s funny because
i’m always so eager to go to sleep,
to stop the world for just a while,
to escape the noise of yesterday
and today
and even tomorrow.
but right now,
i’m up
and alive
and my heart pounds with life
to the same beat as the rain pounding against the pane of my window
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Poetry, Prose

Smoker – Karlee Sanders

CIGARETTE IN HAND YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD SWIM ACROSS OCEANS FOR ME

SMOKE POURING OUT OF YOUR NOSTRILS YOU SMILED AND IT MADE MY HEART LEAP
WITH YOUR LIGHTER FLICKERING YOU PROMISED I WOULDN’T GET HURT
BUT WHAT I DIDNT KNOW WAS THAT I WAS YOUR CIGARETTE
BURNING FOR YOU
TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD
AND EVENTUALLY YOU WOULD DISCARD ME
AND ID BE NOTHING BUT ASHES
BLOWING AWAY IN THE WIND
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Poetry

I Just Can’t Love You Either – Brooke Safferman

Where is my home now?

Broken hearts more painful than the shifting bones they belong to

Where is my home now?

Unspoken words burning my inner ears like a radio set to static

I have learned to no longer ask any questions that

I would really rather not know the answer to.

 

Your fingers on my collar bone, your fingers in my hair

Exhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

Inhale? Inhale, inhale, inhale!

You beg to yourself,

But all of the oxygen has left the twin-size bed.

And all you have left to breath in is

The truth.

 

Here today, gone tomorrow they always told me

I always thought you’d be the one to prove them wrong

Your smile was bright but your heart was even brighter

Or so I thought.

Or so I thought.

 

At night, when I’m still awake, 50 shades of the-light-is-off-so-why-can’t-I-sleep

It’s been three months, give or take a few days

And the words you said still haunt my dreams.

Inhale.

Inhale.

Inhale.

“I just can’t love a person like you.”

 

But then, one of these nights, an epiphany occurred

In the darkness of the night

I just can’t love you, either.

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Poetry

How to Look for Shapes in the Sky – Iman Messado

1. Make sure your eyes are clear.
You can’t have any cobwebs on the sill,
your eyelashes must be brushed straight through.
Are your tear ducts clogged?
Go ahead and polish your irises
until they shine as brilliantly
as the sun does
when you forgot your sunglasses
on a particularly
hot spring-summer day.
2. Have you looked yet?
Don’t do it until you’re ready.
Now that your eyes can match the sun for
clarity and
luster,
you have to understand
the implications
of that.
You have to remember to
blink.
Just because you can
stare down the sun,
doesn’t mean you should.
You’ll work it out along the way –
just know that your head is made
of stone and that
the sky is a celestial ocean.
Fear drowning.
3. I don’t mean to scare you.
I also don’t mean to control you.
I’m only worried – you have so much potential –
I sound ridiculous but
you only have to look into the mirror to see what I mean.
Have you looked?
Do you like it?
What do mountains have on the shifting marshmallow peaks of a Cumulus?
What does grandmother’s feather bed have on
the interminable expanses of heavenly soft Stratus?
4. The shapes are supposed to be what
really matter.
You’re supposed to ignore all that
has and is and will be
in favor of
practicality and analysis and intellectuality.
Of course,
it makes sense,
it should be as it is.
It’s just unfortunate is all.
It’s just you have so much potential.
So make sure your eyes are clear.
Remember that your head is a stone.
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Poetry

“I think this is maybe gonna stick with me for a long time.” – Matt Gryzduk

You will forget the way the friction burn felt at four years old, forearm dragging along rug

You will remember it all at once when people change their Twitter bios to the same thing at once

You will forget her resting expression because you never knew her well enough

You will forget that you thought about death maybe too much in the past but now never

You will forget birthday cakes, you will forget stories told to you under fluorescent lights

You will forget rewriting your name into her mouth

You will forget that it comes and goes in waves

You will forget that you’re only the second to worst person in general

You will forget that you weren’t thinking but are now very conscious

You will forget her name

But you will remember the friction burn, graft it onto others and like you perhaps they will tell others about the scar it left.

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