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 Sep 2015 Salima D
claire
Brave Girl
 Sep 2015 Salima D
claire
I was born with a heart full of blood and stars.
I was born brave.

When they laid me on my mother’s chest
I stared into her eyes as if I’d known her always.
When she gave me to my father to hold,
he wouldn’t put me down. Just rocked me
through that hospital night of beeping
and chaos and latex gloves snapped
onto capable hands, staring at me
like I was something confusingly
wondrous.

My grandpa first met me after my mother and I
trudged off an airplane into the bustle
of thousands
and when he got a good look at me,
smiling hugely, he said
my god, she’s otherworldly.
No one can compare an infant to
the mystical
but I was round and rosy and
January and furrowed-brow and
decisive, determined, dauntless,
and I think I kind of believe him.

I was what they call a late-bloomer,
a warrior of the quiet kind
who picked tiny strawberries from the neighbor’s
yard and ate them on the driveway
amid battalions of rainbow chalk, who
wore her fairy wings and flower chains
long after other kids gave up make-believe
for video games.
I was an arrow of a child,
headed perpetually for rawness of spirit
and purity of truth,
and when circle after circle of friends
closed on me
my heart ran salty scarlet rivers through my chest.
When they said I was too sensitive, too odd,
I bawled into my mattress
with a richness of despair and yes,
I wished I was not who I was.
I was different, and that scared the other children.
I was kind.

So I grew up. Slowly.
My drawers filled with poems I fought to birth,
waiting in the darkness for them like an animal.
I did stupid things and I did lovely things. My bones
ached me to a new height.

They say the day you get your period is the day you
become a woman, but the day I became a woman
was in the middle of August on the living room couch
when my father stopped loving my mother and started
loving someone else.
I did bleed, but it wasn’t the right kind.
It wasn’t fertility or practicing walking around
with a pad between my legs, awkward,
awed at myself. It wasn’t that kind at all.

There are many ways to grow up. I grew up
because of my dad whistling on mornings after
*** with my best friends’ mom,
because of him showering
to go out and my mother retching into the bathroom sink,
because of the mutilation of family.
But I didn’t grow up dim.
I grew up steely and flagrant and voluminous,
unfolding in all directions
because I, runner in the woods,
I, poet,
I, last one picked for the team,
I, oddball,
I, exhalation of light,
I, otherworldly,
am not stem, nor stamen,
nor petal.

I am the blossom.
Blood and stars.
Brave.
 Sep 2015 Salima D
Luann Jung
Blue
 Sep 2015 Salima D
Luann Jung
There is a blue area in my heart
It is neither dark nor light
not the sky or the ocean.
Instead, it is somewhere
in between, where the birds
and the ships disappear
into nothing as they become
smaller and smaller and
more and more isolated.
There is a strange space in my heart
It is neither here or there.
It is made up of the differences between
eyes and seeing and observing.
It is made up of the change between
one wave and the next and the next.
There is a black circle in my heart
It is black, that's for sure, because
there is nothing beyond it.
Like an empty hole facing the
darkness of oblivion, looking in is the
same from both sides. And slowly,
like an infection, the blackness
spreads until it becomes bigger
than I could ever be.
 Sep 2015 Salima D
mk
lonely people
 Sep 2015 Salima D
mk
in your head, you can still hear her screaming
in mine, i still hear the sound of his feet leaving
you can still picture the rage in her eyes
i can still remember the way his lips curved when he lied
late at night, you can still feel her touch
midday, i recall conversations where he said too much
you hear her in the way you talk
i see him in the way i walk

we’re just two broken people
with our history defining us
coming together, trying to regain
our ability to love and to trust

or maybe this is just a way
to numb the pain
maybe, just maybe
nothing’s changed
maybe, just maybe
it’s always going to be the same
we’ll fall to our graves
without ever learning the definition of sane
maybe, just maybe
this is all a game
*oh, this is all just a game
but if you walk away tonight, we'll be two more lonely people in the world tonight. just two more lonely people who gave up the fight.
Let's talk about the girl,
who wasn't ready for the nights events,
ashamed of the fact that she didn't know the right words, or gestures to prove herself worthy.

Let's talk about the boy,
keeping a pace comparable to roaring waves,
inviting himself into a place he wasn't welcome.

Let's talk about the word "please",
how it fell off his tongue like cinnamon; coating the surface of her uncertainty with promises of a tomorrow.

Let's talk about the street lights,
radiating like a warning,
whispering: run.

Let's talk about regret,
humming her to sleep,
reminding her of the view from a dark street
screaming: you deserve more than this.
 Sep 2015 Salima D
E Copeland
I am allowed to hate you.
I am allowed to spit your name out of my mouth.
I am allowed to cry acid tears.
I am allowed to guard my heart.
I am allowed to not speak to you for years.
I am allowed to drink more than I should.
I am allowed to miss you, still.
But what I am not allowed to do,
what I will never be allowed to do is
think that I am not allowed to find love again.
 Sep 2015 Salima D
sanch kay
our sick minds, they get no sympathy.
you can get caught in the civil war
your mind wages against itself and
emerge victorious night after night,
who cares, no one's looking,
you're not supposed to show off.
but cry for three days straight
and everybody loses their ****.
i don't want to have this sick mind,
i didn't ask for this sick life,
i'd rather take it all and sell it
to the devil.
since i'm destined for hell anyway, can i get home sooner? this living thing isn't really my thing.
streams of the stars
golden leaves
sinking in the fading light
dappled shadows
where the light drowns
its stones and unwraps
the sweetness of the night.
I learned all about paralysis
when I found myself waking,
cheek pressed against the wetness
of a blank journal page, aching
with the stifled screams of
my unvoiced muse.

Perhaps it was the cold hand
of my nightmare that shook
me awake, Vulnerability-
who carried himself in vain
and laced his gaze with the
severity of a thousand swords
bracing for impact, framed with
the familiar mask of the Joker-
whom I have become.

Crippled by a force almost demonic
which hovered my thoughts over paper
close enough to almost feel them come alive,
yet distant enough to watch them
disintegrate from the rooftops and
collect as a *** of torment
stuck permanently in the part of my throat
I could not bear to swallow.

To unravel like the peel of
a summer tangerine, lying exposed-
cool air breathing under naked skin
I have taught myself to shelter
from the judgment of  bitter eyes
and words put together only
to criticize.

but in visions I see a girl, dark eyes and
charcoal hair spilling over paper
covered in pretty penmanship
and she is fearless-
hand dancing along to the symphony
of her thoughts, staccato beats
and Allegro! her passion encompasses
more than just ink on lines, you
can see them echo and reverberate
fragmented poetry through the channels
of her veins

and it is so evident- she is free.

and for her, my dream expands further
and I begin to unravel words
stuck trapped under thick orange skin
and invisible walls designed to shelter,
exposing myself to him-
my nightmare, and the retinas
coated effortlessly in judgment

and I am reborn today rather
than tomorrow, eyes a little brighter
and this time, I awaken to the aroma
of new beginnings.
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