I've been searching for the right words to put in my poems. Counting syllables against the weight of someone's approval, wondering if a poem falls silent when the wrong person doesn't hear it. “They will always be mountains to cross, and we all have to bear the cross the cross to success.” Yes, there are many people who need these words. But what about those who need something else? The stories coated in lines, the emotions spilled like paint, the words that don't promise everything will be okay. So when I pick up my pen and write about a single mother struggling with herself and the world, or a couple frightened by their own love, or someone standing at the edge of a decision they don't know how to make know that it is poetry. Not every poem has to speak to everyone. Maybe it only needs to find the one person who sees themselves between the lines. The one who needed someone to put their feelings into words. The one who thought they were the only one. So I will keep...
This drum has been beating for the past hour inside my chest, keeping my hand warm within my fiancé’s. His right hand rests on the steering wheel. Locked in. I’m in love with this man, I repeat like a parrot, over and over, trying to grow comfortable inside the words. Words I’ll soon announce to the world, claiming you as mine like nothing has changed. Like the bruised skin beneath my dress doesn’t still ache from this afternoon. How bold of you to dress me up like a present before taking me to meet my parents, your fingerprints still fading beneath my sleeves. And somehow, between traffic lights and your hand squeezing mine, I almost convince myself this is what love is supposed to feel like.