There is a rabbit on the pavement

Before my wheels drive over it again

I see it’s life flash before my eyes

But my tires have already driven by.

I did not send it to its death

Yet I take it with my wheels again

Parts spread over the pavement

Pieces of it lodged in my treads.

The blood has all dried up,

The stomach spills the guts,

The foot is severed from the leg,

The rabbit is humbled in the end.

How unlucky can this creature be

For its trail of life to lead to me?

A stone for passing is what humans invent

Little one, the open road is your stone.

I cannot bury you, Earth cannot lay its claim,

Instead you are met with a human bane.

We must clean you after causing your pain.

I am late to therapy, I must sort myself,

So that I do not become roadkill like you.

Pity and brake lights are all that I can offer,

And in these moments I serve as your mirror.

Where you died is an everlasting omen

Doomed to repeat again and again

We hope your body becomes more broken

Easier and easier for us to cope with.

The dust is where I leave you.

I didn’t take your life.

But I am like the one who did.

I can only imagine what you would do instead.

But I am late, I must stop at the sign ahead.

-Cipher

Image from Pinterest

I

I ask my grandmother to peel me a clementine 

But she has it in her hands before I speak 

Softly exposing the smell of love to me 

She would plunge her hands into deep earth 

Uncaring of the dirt, tearing it for me gently 

All so that I would have a safe place to sleep. 

The orange skin gathers under her nails

Remnants of a loving hand motion,

Aroma’s caress has a special permanence-

Some love is silent, and some love has scent 

II

This tale of fruit mirrors the cycles of time, 

Love never was a labor of Hercules, 

This story bloomed for Persephone and Eve. 

They are the forbidden apple of your eye, 

They consume their fruit, defying divine, 

They made their choice, I cannot make mine,

Rooted back to them, their feminine teeth,

Gives your reason for punishing the flesh

Imprisoning us for our eternal repayment

For the blood of the apple and pomegranate.

III

Cherry knotted tongues twist and tangle 

Ripe lips spill saliva that tastes so sweet 

Maraschino cocktail created within me 

A special kind of lipgloss, limited edition 

Stains red skin redder for remembrance

Sweating like a water glass in warm air. 

Cherry-pick your lovers for this trait 

Ignore them if they aren’t perfectly ripe,  

Although the portion size is set for two 

Popping cherries concerns only you,

She might like it or she might fake,

Or vomit from the stomachache-

Consuming only concerns your taste  

IV

I am simply a wasted prodigy-

And yet- my soul is so hungry-

Sitting in the tangled roots of this fig tree 

I am at the inverted crux of my decision making

Time seems wide yet narrows to a door frame

One can step through or close, only partially, 

The time will pass anyway, you will be dragged.

Some would say a sickness spreads to the branches-

They perfectly position their fruit so it falls into one basket.

I will gorge myself on the fruit of my passions 

I could eat rotted, bruised figs as a delicacy

The dirt covered on them will only add texture,

Or better yet, I could climb the tree like a ladder

Filling my body with hard earned scratches,

In the foliage earn the agency of my actions. 

V

Must we be spilled like mulberry wine? 

How many of us become Helen of Troy? 

The watermelon seed weighs heavy on the hips

They birth in the conquest to satisfy his image 

The fruits of my labour are before me 

A cornucopia of bountiful offerings 

Born and born again in my ancestry

Though often reduced to the dirt for the seed,

Fruits that bear must also be flowering.

I have twenty-five mothers to my name 

Though lost to time, they once shared my face.

VI

I asked my grandmother to peel me a clementine

The mother asked her daughter to tend the farm

The men asked the women to forage for their lives

The women grew attached to themselves like grapes on the vine.

💕Cipher

Author’s note: I had to get through some burnout to post this, but creation is the solution to the frustration of burnout; I promise it’s worth it, so keep creating ✨✨

I carry with me a suitcase that is too full, 
Stuffed, it trembles with anticipation. 
There are no wheels. 
Everyone around me is the inspector
I thought that I had nothing to hide 
But they did not like what was inside
So they sent me and my heavy suitcase away. 

So I tried packing it into a backpack, 
I rolled everything up so tight
I had to decide what to pack
And what to leave behind 
On the ground at my home, 
Only it followed me here, 
Clung to me like clothes, 
And the zippers all split 
Leaving the contents as spilling guts, 
And the baggage inspectors didn’t like that. 
They told me to pack it up, then gave me more. 
A ticket of sorts, a fine at the airport. 

So I had to go back to the suitcase,
Which had seemed to duplicate 
With more now than I had hands. 
I could not stuff their tickets away, 
I tried and the handle broke off
In the baggage claim. 
And my arms were already sore
From hauling with no wheels.
I dont know if they ever had them. 
The carts go by with special drivers,
And with nothing to transport me, 
People assume I’m dragging my feet, 
When all im doing is carrying on. 
They ignore the bags under my arms,
In my hands,  the ones kicked in front of me,
And balancing on my head precariously, 
While staring at the bags under my eyes. 

Art from Pinterest-

I hope this poem does not resonate with you.

I hope you leave it utterly confused.

And I hope your body is safe from the horror that could have been changed by the God of writing.

God of Writing

Can the God of writing destroy a name? 
Somehow erase a stain on my memory?
Or the rage?  
We are the proverbial inkpot and pen of existence 
So in theory, the writer could scratch a word from the system
Blot out anything deemed as a mistake 
Work the midnight oil into illegible insanity- 
Rewrite our better natures into less pain
Like that blasted, stupid, cursed name. 
My experience would still bear the same face
An unforgettable image that I cannot escape-

Can the god of writing destroy an image?
The very sound and sight of someone’s soul? 
The feeling inexplicably linked to two bodies? 
The illness which spreads between lives? 
That too has a designation, degredation into
My infection, my symptomatic final destination.  

Titles are power associated narrowly, 
Perhaps the godly writing that can create anything 
Is muted with the pot and pen in the library,
Scribbling away past present and future on the page. 
I wish the God of writing had a name;
So I could invoke it asking them to trade,
They could insert themselves ancient time, 
Eliminate development of the language we say, 
All so that the world would not develop a name. 
Maybe more than one- they would have their place,
In the forlorn graves of dead mother tongues. 
Hardship would be experienced still-
Perhaps worse now for the meddling, 
Yet if this whole fiasco was determental,
I’d sacrifice everything to the butterfly effect, 
So I would never remember evil names I collect. 

This is the sound of what I cannot say,

The crickets speak the silence my worst fears, 

The crickets hum the judgement between friends 

A symphony of disagreements that don’t matter 

In the end after the great flash of volcanos  

They will strum a different tune with many legs 

Even though the notes will ring out the same 

The tension will die when I am in my grave 

May the crickets drown out those thoughts

Tall grasses are audience to this melody of madness 

After the plume of great sunlight and smoke 

We will not have to worry about the catch our throat 

Where we used hesitate and turn our aid away 

From the unhoused or the workers on the streets

The crickets will continue speaking in our place

Long wailing sirens mark many emergencies 

Perhaps the end of the world as shown on tv 

Bringing about a wasteland where the ash will rain

Strip away the skin off the face of humanity 

They are dying between anonymous alleys 

Dropping day by day when the dust settles 

Orange with regrets of the fading sun 

The people’s lives are too bright and too dim 

Nothing but the crickets to sing for them 

All human life reduced to a button because 

No tune we sing could cause intervention.

The only child from a lonely home, 
I’m happy you’re mediocre. 
All wrapped up in your purity culture, 
I’m happy you're mediocre. 
Everything came easy to you, 
Your subjects in school, 
Big fish in a small pond, 
You are the best of the best, 
Excelling in your gene pool. 
You were so spoiled they called you gifted, 
Lavished attention on your achievements, 
You think you know better than everyone now. 
With no one to challenge you, you sank to the bottom
In this sink-or-swim world. 
The human trait of learning never applied, 
So I’m happy you are mediocre now 
That you have to observe, you have to try. 
I would have been just fine
I would have cheered for your success
Except you tried to drown everyone else
Who, through hard work, learned to swim, 
Learned to sprint through their pain 
And in their head say
One more lap, one more length, 
Even when their muscles shake. 
I’m happy you’re mediocre, 
I hope you sink lower, 
For how low you made me feel
Before I knew anything at all and 
Even after I was accomplished 
When I could tread water for long periods. 
I’m happy you are mediocre. 
I like watching you struggle to swim. 
I came to enjoy you ignoring my help
After I gave you a lifejacket and instructions. 
Which you claimed would be socially stunted. 
I intially had to disregard the initial sting, 
Because now not only did I know how to swim- 
I always know your next course of action. 
Of course, you will always reject my life ring
Complain until water enters your mouth
That the current should be calmer, 
And that it used to be easier, 
I’m so happy you’re mediocre. 

Hello everyone! I’m so grateful you are reading. I just wanted to say some words after you read this poem- this poem sums up my feelings about a very specific kind of person who is labelled as smart or gifted at a young age, but instead of using that smartness emotionally, they purposely make everything competitive, and put people down. It may be that they even try to do this to people who are smarter than them. This poem also expresses some of my frustration towards the ‘tragic gifted burnout’ narrative. I think this narrative has problems because it takes away the burnt-out former gifted kid’s agency when there is a real opportunity to show softness and care. I was never gifted myself, but even up to the highest levels of school, I can see this mindset, and it’s very tiring. Lmk your thoughts in the comments!

Hello everyone! I am considering making a series of poems inspired by art installations! This poem came to me when viewing these images, and the thoughts spilled out. 

The Sleeping Vigil

How many names do we carry with us to sleep? 
How many issues burn their way into our dreams? 
They haunt us so much that they are etched into our screens, 
Screaming through the smoke to be perceived, 
Many go to sleep instead of being called crazy. 
Our waxy bed is a mould of our anxieties, 
With wicks going out, even the most enduring candles 
Controlling their slow burn, can continue for so long. 
We cannot cease our fire, or there will be no ceasefire, 
We feel the heat of our bed that we lie in,
And yet even in the quiet, we still have to fight it. 
With scarred hands, with remnants of ash,
We must reshape our community, our path. 
May we keep each other alight while we are awake. 
Our matches cannot burn out; there is too much at stake. 
All of this hurt and hatred and pain, we carry into the midnight. 
We burn softly and slowly for them. 
When fire reigns down from the sky, it is easy to forget
That the hearth home fire was where everything began. 
So we take these candles to bed. In the sleeping vigil, we rest. 
Fueling movements to fight so that fire aids survival instead. 

This is my newest publication called breaking cycles!! Hope you all enjoy :)

I was put into the witches’ brew

A boiling cauldron of sickly sinew

Like Achilles dipped in the river styx

My weakness remade in its image

More powerful than the water of the womb.

I have no text to confirm their method

Save the strategizing of my simmering

So here is my stewing steamy recipe-

They first put in a heart worm

For the feelings that fetidly linger

Then a boiled frog would enter

Alongside stomach butterflies.

The barrel shot fish sizzles the stew

For my idleness represented here

Add antlers of a perished headlight deer

For the good measure of my inaction.

The sheared black sheep’s wool

Froth the scent the outcasts share

With a singular crow for good luck

And the ashes of a flamed out moth

Then the fly all tangled up in a web

Then they fold in the mule’s stubborn tail

Alongside two birds with their stone

Who were too young, sweet, and frail.

The last ingredient is a sacrificial lamb

That many people would say I slit myself-

I didn’t. But I did poke and close the cut,

But no gentleness could ever stop

The pouring overflow of its blood.

There may be a sacrificial lamb,

But NOT the tears of a crocodile,

I know exactly who I am.

We must save this man at any cost 	 	I can help actualize this hybrid machine
Mechanize his heart 				        But his heart still beats 
Perform invasive surgery 			        Broaden his mind from the inside out 
Improve his speed  				        To the world, he is missing 
His jumping abilities 				        After the controversial events 
Remake him better than before 		Meant to be a hero, he fell from grace 
Force him to witness and comply		Now he must process his tragedies
Make him do the dirtiest deeds 		He drifted across like wood in the sea
Enemies will get no sympathy		        But he still deserves benevolence 
Dead is dead- the best solution. 		As the sparrow flies, so will he
Rebrand his existence after discovery. 	He will choose to help a team. 

I am the silent war dog			        I am the ninja dragon
Half man                                       		        Half machine 
Now I am a weapon 				        I am finally complete 

This is my first attempt at dual-stanza poetry, so I hope it goes well! It formatted okay on my computer, so I hope it reads okay on the phone! If it is incomprehensible, I have a photo of it regardless :3

The moment you have all been waiting for!!!

Here is my poem that got published 💕💕

I didn’t get third, but to be shortlisted is still such an honour! Thank you all for helping me develop my voice with your inspiring work and wonderful feedback :)

On Haunting

I want to rest in peace. I am tired. I want to be buried. 

But how angry I am. 

I keep being summoned by my killer. 

This time, he said he was sorry.

Sorry for taking so long to summon me. 

After I had haunted. I spent so much of my energy, 

Reverberating with every step, 

I was the lemure who was unburied- just dumped. 

I was face down in the dirt because I could not be faced. 

Even my physical body, though dead, was not admitted. 

At first, I was a revenant, hell-bent on revenge

Consumed by suffering, but I was kind in life. 

Kindness was a mercy I showed myself in death. 

I then felt like the doppleganger, the killer's mirror

But I only reflected the qualities of the living. 

Perhaps I was a wraith, a symbol of alive decay, 

Gangerinous friendship- I guess I knew my killer quite well.

I was so exhausted until I turned back into myself, 

Faded into eternity. 

I guess he had felt guilty. But I was almost at peace. 

Now I have returned against my will- I am again in between. 

If my heart could beat, it could tell so many stories; 

Now they are nothing more than phantom memories,  

Producing phantom pains, poisoned by the person who killed me. 

I moved through all the hauntings of my muse, inspiration- 

For a cause that they refused to acknowledge. 

Now that I am here again, I wonder what apparition I am.

Once so many kinds, but merely a wisp to an unbeliever. 

Now that my form is seen, I wish I had been allowed to sleep. 

I am now simply a ghost- do I allow myself to haunt? 

Do I retell these secrets for the living to keep? 

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You are neither Kevlar nor gauze, 
You have all the mechanics of a gun 
Your brazen defence is your attack 
Flash everyone the clip that you pack 
Do not cover me to protect me from harm 
Expose me to pointed accusation of your firearm 
It’s not always angled towards my body 
And it’s not your fault your trigger is faulty. 
The words I’m okay translate to 
Shoot me now with a twelve gauge 
But the type of gun you are starts with ‘AK’ 
So I know the shotgun shells are for show. 
I would not want you to be another way 
A covering is far too close to my shape 
To protect or heal implies imminent violence 
At this point I am a warrior on the frontlines 
You don’t live as long with no experience 
And I have none with cloths or fabrics 
Since you can’t teach a gun how to dress wounds 
I would rather be shot than expect 
Anything different from you. 

Temperature gauge 

I swear I’m living on mercury 

Trying to read the temp of this room 

It’s a temporary conditional warning 

Or being stuck in tepid isolationist doom 

I hop in and out just to check in 

But a frigid air sweeps the place 

That I swear did not exist a moment ago.

These warm and cold fronts are inconceivable 

So many egos draft upwards and down 

So a tornado forms then throws me around. 

Lobster 

Let me tell you I’m the best of the bunch 

Tap on the glass and see how I react 

Regard me as bug-eyed when I stare back. 

I am the lobster, I don’t want to be eaten 

But I am disappointed when I am not chosen 

When the observer turns into the lobster 

With quick assumptions about physicality 

Engorging on the pleasurable view 

Who doesn’t want to be high quality? You?

Bus thoughts 

Intrusive death, intrusive sex, 

Why is it that they confront me here?

I do not want to be alone with my bus thoughts. 

I see life that only seems to deal bad hands. 

Am I looking at their lives, or mine? 

I do not judge a book by its cover, 

But I see the world through a lens of my own. 

Do not leave me alone with the bus thoughts, 

They loop and remind with every stop sign, 

Sticky-substanced like the stop request line. 

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Her death has turned us all into sacrifices, 
Communally existing now, there is no I, but we. 
Through these statements, you can feel through me. 
She taught me how light the soul could be, 
And what it was to feel paradise in my fingertips. 
She taught me about wholesome interaction with no hidden meaning,
How tradition and time are honed through the present.
She taught me resilience, which I knew but she reminded, 
Through the perseverance of grief and love.  
I can be home away from home, taking goodness where I go, 
To stand inside myself instead of viewing myself from outside. 
She taught me to speak plain words without overthinking, 
She taught me of great empires and people, 
The impermanence of time and learning to be grateful. 
…I should have learned that even Rome had to fall. 
Girlhood is not godhood. Though it felt like it briefly, 
Its brightness was so great, it distracted us all. 
We stood against this purple blight, 
Knowing our fate, we stood anyway. 
Nothing feels right anymore, 
But even when forced to our knees, ragged and weary, 
She taught us that when we are together, we are a community.