Why should you limit yourself to being just pretty?
Don't be just pretty.

Be a storm, beautiful, dark, intelligence flashing across your eyes like lightning and a voice as loud as thunder. Be a storm and never be silent.

Be a forest, rooted, wise, strong and unmovable in the force of opposition and yet a dancer in the wind. Be a forest, and loyal to your land.

Be the ocean, glittering, mysterious, captivating thousands of hearts and countless lives in your allure. Be the ocean, and be ruthless.

Be nature. I guarantee nothing will get you farther.

pain is with him
they never drifted apart
not even once
the sun knows the truth
and so does the moon
yet everyone knows not
because every time he bleeds
all he bleeds is ink

which period shall I resound the four
verses one, the rhyme?  shall I use parentheses
or just write free, might I space
or italicize or leave this un-glamorized?

I walk down the long six-story concrete steps
a step at a time divining
the barren apartment
the govt spends
its money on above hovering

You think I want to live here
in this danger rat infestation
its free but that don't make me happy
I have a baby
and the world calls me a freeloader

obviously, I have decided to
write this in stanzas
it doesn't flow like the steps
this woman walks down daily
I do my best

sometimes I sleep with men when the cupboards bare
I decided to break the flow up

for why
I don't know

I have gone two weeks without diapers before and my baby
I would do anything for her so don't judge me. I
am not a *****.

I am trying to survive.  

Again I interrupt her story to inject-
poetry has to make a difference, it often doesn't rhyme, it
isn't made to be  syllables and meters.
It is to make a difference. Let me shut up.
let her speak.

I didn't mean to bring a child into this hell. But I gave in
to one night of weakness, Now I am stuck  on the sixth floor here in this bleak *** building with no hope no
idea how I might make her life better.
I have tried god.

All I have now are the streets.

The streets are brutal.