Tag Archives: poems

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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Poetry, Prosetry

Heavy Breathing – Iman Messado

My siblings and I have the habit of breathing heavily.

We inhale the dirt, the foliage, the pebbles in the moor with a single exhale,

(never mind the pesky case of asthma that we all seem to share)

and exhale the North wind, the starry night and the cloudless summer sky.

Our lungs must take up at least 83% of our bodies,

stratocumulus clouds and bunches of hydrangeas were pressed up against

our tracheas and primary bronchi.

When my sister speaks,

it’s with rays of sunshine peeking between her teeth.

She tends to talk rather loudly,

but I attribute that to her trying to be heard over the chirping of North African black birds.

Her knees are as knobby as a giraffe’s and her eyes are as clear as a doe’s.

However, she walks with the gait of a lioness,

and would rather inhale your fear then exhale defeat.

I have two brothers,

both are thin and gangly with limbs like birch wood branches or

a new born gazelle with awkward limbs and an ambition that could rival

that of a bird learning to master the air underneath its wings.

The older one breathes slowly and deeply.

He would inhale a scarab beetle as carefully as he would a baleen whale.

His exhales would spread across West African deserts and European tundras,

kissing nightingales and billy goats to sleep.

He doesn’t know of frantic cries nor hyperventilating,

his lungs are made of the same stuff as the mountains in South America.

The younger one is reminiscent of a rabbit,

young and small and rapid.

He breathes in lilypads and peonies and sparks of ember.

He breathes in harried words and furrowed brows and nervous feet.

He breathes in flicking tails and hurricanes and lightning bolts.

He exhales the rushing waves of the Pacific ocean.

My lungs are weak and I can only breathe in as much as I can imagine.

Sometimes, my mind is too large for my lungs.

I’ve got daisies and marshes and valleys and wombats and thunderstorms in mind.

I’m ready to exhale Atlantis, Paradise lost and the Second Coming.

Let me a breathe a little heavier.

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Poetry

Our Own Fairy Tale – Brooke Safferman

snowflakes

or something like

i

c

i

c

l

e

s

Drip down my arms, clinging to my veins,

Like it’s only a matter of time before they melt away.

In a place where time doesn’t exist,

In a world where reality doesn’t conform,

We can be whomever we want.

Once upon a time,

I was the ice queen, but you were the fire-breathing dragon

Frozen walls melted, its blocks floating into

happy little puddles of Sunlight

before my very eyes.

You can be the Unicorn; I’ll be the Fairy.

Let the Wicked Witch say what She wants,

But we will always write

Our own fairy tale.

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Essay

So You Think You’re a “Meninist” – Alex Esterline

Before you read this article, if you have a problem with feminism (equality of the sexes), then you should probably just leave.

If you keep up with the feminist movement on any forms of social media, you’ve probably heard of the men who denounce the activism in the community by redirecting the issue on the challenges men face in society. Now, I’d like to make clear that their issues do exist. As a feminist, I clearly don’t hate men- as I identify as one- and I benefit from feminism as well. (All genders do). However, anti-feminist movements usually spend so much more time telling us why feminism is the root of all evil than they do helping the men that are discriminated against in society.

The movement I’m referring to is, of course, “Meninism”.

Meninism started as a patriarchal joke on twitter that was backed by a few problematic white boys. They eventually started growing a fanbase and shortly afterwards and turned into a serious movement.

When looking into the foreign world of meninism, it seems their main goal is to completely disregard the patriarchy while perpetuating inequality of the sexes. They also like to complain about issues that may or may not effect them- without actually doing anything about it. Meninists have attempted to re-invent the wheel as they ignore the positive effects feminism has on all genders. This metaphorical wheel, of course, is extremely bumpy.

Meninism’s main issues seem to be body-positivity in men and the unjust expectations of “masculinity”. Both of which are extremely valid points. However, meninism segregates those who could be fighting patriarchal notions (those of which are the source of sexism) alongside each other. Feminism aims to promote equality of the sexes, which is why it benefits other genders as well as women- the oppressed gender.

When meninists come along and turn the issue on themselves (which they will inevitably do), they are removing the focus from the issues that matter increasingly to oppressed women. Meninism would be a wonderful movement if they actually worked towards equality for all genders- the main point they attempt to make, since they immediately equate feminism with misandry.

Meninism as a movement should be rejected on its face because of its misogynistic roots and innate dismissal of structural violence towards women. Remember that feminism is a movement for equality, and distracting from that hurts yourself and others. Misandristic feminism is not feminism, and

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Prose

Thoughts from The Grand Canyon – Reilly Wieland

The Grand Canyon seems to become more and more transcendentally ‘grand’, and the word appears to be more and more precise. This road trip seems to have become fantastical, like everything we have seen thus far cannot be explained in words. I am waiting for the greenscreen to fall and the stage producer is about to pop up and cut the scene.

In my life personally, I’ve tried to focus on “pleasure”. That word has a singularly sexual meaning but that’s not it. This trip has seemed to show me a lot of extraordinary things and people (or at least different sides of family) that I had not seen before that remind me that every moment of my peculiar and transient life is something so spectacular and meant to be celebrated.

I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things and I know it’s cheesy, but something about standing in front of the kind of place that makes me wonder how I have the audacity to feel anything but hopeful when a place like this is here is really amazing.

On that, I saw my first real dome sky, the kind that writers can pen novels about and you see as desktop backgrounds. The Earth was so flat that I could see the exact horizon arise and the sky rise like a bird’s nest, encasing me in. Skies like that will give you a strangely acute sense of reference in what the world can be. It seemed like the smog parted and everything came to me, like the little puzzle that I couldn’t find the last piece to anytime before.

This cross country adventure has seemed to teach me relevance, or at least made me comprehend the importance of giving my attention to the things that truly matter. In preparation for this trip, I focused too intently on outcomes: upcoming injuries, gas station food, sleepless nights.

The things that I thought would be big events at the beginning of the trip are, in fact, non-events of everyday life, all which I am not in control of. These non-events have made up this trip and my life. The irrelevancy of these miniscule annoyances seems to be overwhelming as I think about it.

What is relevant are the things that have come along with the injuries, the seemingly already perfectly preserved memories of the trip: the exact feeling you get staring at Zion, or at the Grand Canyon, or a dome sunset.

But in that, it seems short sighted to mark these non-events as unimportant. The non-events are also the events that act as catalysts for me to see the major happenings around me.
And those happenings in these moments are my life, and I want to take pleasure in them all.

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Uncategorized

People Aren’t Medicine – Alexis Robson

You were broken when you were five,
It’s no wonder you were struggling to survive,
When your only support is a crutch of self-doubt,
How can anyone expect you to figure yourself out?

You lack the tools to fix yourself,
So you tend to turn to someone else,
To hold and guide you,
Always coming to your aid,
You forget the loneliness you felt when you were eight.

But using people as crutches is naïve,
Because eventually they get tired and leave,
And now you’re ten, but left again,
Struggling to figure out how to fit in.

People come and go,
But you become wiser and grow,
Soon you’re sixteen and have loyal friends,
And you realize there’s no point in trying to “fit in”.

The years fly and you turn eighteen,
And realize time has floated by like a dream,
You’ve learned to be your own crutch,
And that you used to overthink too much.

But life has taught you a lesson,
That you cannot use people as your medicine.

-a.r

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poem, Prosetry

Little Rectangles of Hope – Brooke Safferman

Little Rectangles of Hope

 

Anxiety.

It drips from your lips

Like some toxic saline solution

You always preferred for me to be the sweet one.

 

The unknown: the sun not yet risen, the butterfly still in his cocoon

I am suffocating from the words you will not say

Nervous and afraid, with those sweaty palms I love so much

Commitment was never really your style, no matter how painfully

I wish it was.

 

Worrying so strong, it becomes a tangible force

Quicksand, you laugh as you sink deeper within

I’ll play the role of the caretaker, you, the needy child

You throw your medication out when I look the other way.

 

Dull and numb, you say

You shake your head when I shove the bottle back at you

Commit to them, I plead

Commit to me, I plead

You shake your head when I shove the pressure back at you.

 

Whoever knew that an enemy could take the form of

Little rectangles of hope?

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Poetry, Prosetry

Just in Case – Ugonma Ubani-Ebere

In case you didn’t know, someone loves you.

In case you didn’t know, someone values you.

In case you didn’t know, someone adores you.
In case you didn’t know, someone depends on you.
In case you didn’t know, you are special.
In case you didn’t know, you are needed.
In case you didn’t know, you are wanted.
In case you didn’t know, you are important
In case you didn’t know, I appreciate you.
In case you didn’t know, I support you.
In case you didn’t know,  I admire you.
In case you didn’t know, I am inspired by you.
Just in case you didn’t know how important you are to the universe, I thought I’d let you know.
I thought I’d let you know, just in case.
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Poetry, Prose, Prosetry

Can He? – Bianca Stelian

Ode to the poet

Whose wretched insides

Ache to create symphonies

Concertos of rhyme, seasoned with reason

But keeps it a secret.

His voice, a flame

Of passion and vigor

Vinegar

Rubbing salt in the wound

Makes a particular thickener

Raw with anticipation

Elation

The creation of patience the world’s friendliest patron

Sensation

But if he calms down or slows then nobody knows

For the pros who use prose are just masked by the blows

Of the older yet bolder visionaries with line breaks

Oh shit, there’s no rhyme

He scribbles and scrabbles till he comes up with one fine

Enough to make sense without being too bent that no heavenly sent angel likes what he’s crying

Dying

A dead profession

Parents said doctor or lawyer et cetera

But his mind is awash with the words it’s a plethora

Line after line he debates if he’s trying so hard that his eyeballs might pop off their retinas

But he’s not a slacker, a cheat who’s insane

He’s just a poor kid with too much right brain

He yearns to make words that will serve all his purposes

Verbages swirling all over his surfaces

Fortresses built with the strength of a circus kid

Everyone hates how his nerves give him worthlessness

Murderous curses so urgent he swerves into learning concerning new tactics for perfectness

Fervently churning away what he’s working on

Soon he’ll be ruler of burnouts and mirthlessness

STOP!

His fingers won’t work, they’re refusing to write

He curls up alone, all his demons in sight

He needs to get help before his psyche ignites

A torrent of pain and percussion alike

See, he’s just a guy with way too much to fight

He knows what to write but just not what is right

So sad but he won’t give up, laugh but he won’t trip up, slipping and skipping is not for what he signed up

Sickly, he mixes the words of his wisdom with intimate diction so smooth it needs no clean up

Finally found it, his voice that resounds it so fine he’s astounded he’s no longer grounded,

It’s a fight, it’s a battle, a kick in the asshole, a call to the action that makes him an animal

Now he’s on top of the world he’s a natural

Maybe the fame will make his voice speak national

Rationally tactical, tactically radical

Practically casual, casually masterful

Now he’s infallible, crazy, unflappable

Not giving up was his key to the capital

Till he collapses his mind will spit rhapsodies

Badder than travesties, synapses snapping the

Aura of more than can ever be scored rushing in through his system so sonic it’s alchemy

Finally here, he’s made himself clear, there’s no turning back and no, nothing to fear

A life filled with obstacles, hardships galore

Has turned him into something he’d always hoped for

And so, when he sits down

He knows there’s no shit now

He’s on the right path, yeah, his life is his wits now

Dying had made him much more of a man

Immortality nearing, all part of the plan

A symbol, an idol, as big as the Bible

Survival his life goal, a poet’s last stand –

A poet, he knows it, he’s broke it, he shows it

From boyhood to manhood, he can do it

He can.

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Poetry

Depth – Ian Dean

I hope that any recent bouts of bravery have shown that I am not so shallow.

To you, whose soothing voice is aloe.

I’ve never been one for simple phrases or words that don’t fit well together, so I leave sweet nothings to the romantically diabetic because it seems I have been using them forever.

 

I find myself here because I discovered a few months ago how I felt for you and I feel as now though beauty can be a medium for humor and intellect. Making me feel like less of a lost cause and bound to some benefit. You who could make me feel less like crucible for sorrow but conduit of confidence.

 

I still marvel at the mystery of you  who was clever enough to make me, proclaimed beast with no chains, feel different somehow I like have to explain my innocent cause and hope that you would value my worth of my name because I’d do the same.

 

The same whose beauty is greater than damned damsel distressed and more compassionate than softest drop of water forming on the bud of a desert flower. She is often so busy but if I could contest that hundreds of hours awaited your attention

And now I’m feeling its power.

 

I don’t care for boasting and seeming so mighty

I’ll show how I care and ever so slightly

Look to your eyes

As you gather your breath,

And ask you a question

While gauging their depth.

Prom?

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