Jordyn LaRaye

Jordyn LaRaye Jan 2022

You stole my poetry.
Not the stuff I wrote, but the stuff stewing in my head.
The things left unsaid, But were said.
spilled out like tippy cup Sunny D—
orange, fragrant stain—
Memorial to a poem that will never be.
Sticky and splattered on the table.
A mess, an overflow of the brain.

Jordyn LaRaye Mar 2021

2017

Reflections are only imperfect replicas
Copying what they cannot fully imitate.
Mirrors, we walk around—
Pretending to represent that which we behold.

Jordyn LaRaye Dec 2020

Silent

It amazes me
That some people do not think in words.
They have no inner monologue
No narrator of their mistakes.
No nagger, no inner critic.
No, their minds are quiet—
Free from the yelling within.
silent

Jordyn LaRaye Sep 2020

Vixere

They have lived,
Their humors cry out
From surface soil:
Bursting bitter springs.
buried groundwater—
Hidden in stratigraphy of
Victorious narratives.
Listen to their blood sing
of humanity unseen.

Jordyn LaRaye Dec 2019

Inherited

We are all babies born
of an addict mother, detoxing
from a drug we never took.

Contrary to the inquiries that I've received... this is a metaphor.

Jordyn LaRaye Dec 2019

Jaywalker

Little silver button,
Placebo for impatience
In the cross walk waiting room,
You are every negative coping mechanism
For every season that can’t go fast enough.
I’ll jaywalk this time.

Jordyn LaRaye Dec 2019

Something like home

You felt like home,
like comfort, familiar like
grandfather's old flannel button ups,
wafting the subtle, distant scent
of 20-year-old cigarette smoke--
undeterred by the washing machine.

You felt like home.
Like me, the little girl,
promising to quit my addiction to burritos,
so he would promise to quit smoking.

Hugging you was like
I could almost ignore it.
Like if I held tight enough
the nearing scent of smoke would
fade.
Or it would have no space to sneak between.

Home, like the smell of a lie.
You were the home I ran away from
years ago,
yet somehow find myself running back to.

#home