Below we have included our favorite poems sent to us by readers and our team for this month’s poetry slam. Remember that each month you can send in poems to be included!
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Dear Mother Nature,
Thanks, but no thanks. I want a do-over.
I want to be Factory Reset.
I need someone to delete everything that makes the rest of me glitch out.
No more stuttering when I remember how much I hate my voice,
no more tripping over curbs because I was staring at my big feet.
I want someone to snap my shoulders backwards when I walk down the street,
giving my neck the strength to hold my head high.
No, better.
I want to strip the flaw from my brain
the same way teenage girls peel away the dirt in their pores,
I want loathing and disgust to speckle the sticky paper.
When it tears away my soul is fresh and smooth
and everything I wasn’t before.
Here I am, everything you wanted me to be.
Here I am, everything I was supposed to be.
No, even better.
Forget the factory reset, scratch the stripping of my flaws.
I want to look at the red blotches and bumps on my skin and see constellations
like the girls with Instagram feeds filled with skinny, perfect bodies say I should.
I want to look at the bags under my eyes as something other than ugly purple stains.
I want to look at my doughy thighs and see a place for someone to trace their fingers,
smooth and soft and gentle,
tickling my skin like a paintbrush tickles a canvas.
I want to look at my long legs and arms like watercolor wings,
as dainty instead of daunting,
or graceful instead of gawky.
I want to be placed in a museum so that I can be told I am a work of art instead of a childish crayon drawing.
Self Analysis
last night i looked into the mirror like i would if i was watching a bad storm outside my window; frightened, yet somehow still intrigued. i imagine the eerie-ness of this old creaky house after the lights go out would completely embody who i am, or, rather, who i’ve become. tons and tons of inconceivable pondering. i push the thoughts back into a dark corner of my mind in which i never plan to visit; kinda like the one in my room with the tangles of mangled spiderwebs that im not entirely sure how they got there. no, this reflection i gaze at is not conventional. im accepting that i will never be the white picket fence american dream. but i am ethereal in my own way, all the same.
By Kaiti
she lay down as the last rays of brightness snuck through the slivers of her eyelids.
he holds her head as she whispers and weeps,
but he can’t hear her cries.
she asks him why me, why me.
the sugar swirled with her tears in her stomach as she yelled louder and louder,
she just wants to be loved for what she is.
deep down she would do anything for whatever being walked the earth.
her heart had once been full and she yearned to return it to that state.
but what she is is a monster created by everyone in her life.
everything they have ever said has pierced her skin, and poisoned her heart,
and left her hopeless and helpless.
every time they touched her, they broke off a piece of her soul
creating an empty space inside of her
mind
and leaving behind
rage.
she had an ounce of sunshine left that she stretched out for everyone she knew
because she thought that she might receive some light in return.
but she kept finding darkness until she couldn’t see through the thick black atmosphere.
a fist formed from the depths of the deep enclosure and grabbed her by the neck,
suffocating her until her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
she had been sheltered her entire life in attempts to keep her safe just to find it was the
same shelter that was killing her.
she was lying in the darkness pleading for help but he just sat there watching her.
begging for a being to let him hear her.
she reached out and touched her palm to his,
just to watch his own figure slowly fade to black,
and sink right through her fingertips.