This is a poem about the realities of anxiety. My friend Emelia recently collaborated with me by sharing her experiences with panic attacks, sensationalized mental health, and the importance of self acceptance. She aims to help others on similar journeys with the use of her experience and positively authentic outlook on life. Here, I attempted

*no capitalization intended unrequited love may be the worst kind. it’s pain never truly goes away. this is a poem about such love and the repercussions it leaves behind. we carved our names upon a tree. a worthless, good for nothing tree, that withered and died. i loved you. you said you loved me. i

This poem presents a contemplative stance on subtle experiences in life. It is a piece regarding the fractured relationship between two people and how often the moments of that given relationship impacts our skin. sometimes i wonder: if the crumbs collecting on grit makes itself present in people’s words — whether the cleft of our

When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark. When I was in middle school, I was afraid of how big and vast space is. To combat both of those fears, I stuck up about 3-packs worth of glow in the dark stars on my ceiling. Recently, I’ve been looking at them for more

For the most part of my life, I’ve been a picky eater. One afternoon when this was pointed out in a negative light by one of my parents I started thinking about the fact that sometime’s parents don’t understand that when they make the decision to start a family they completely ignore the fact that

The reason I wrote this poem is because for the longest time black women were forced to conform to eurocentric beauty standards to feel attractive to society unknowing the magic & gorgeousness that lies within us. This little girl grew up despising every part of herself Her skin, her hair, her nose and her body

The media has a concept of beauty that is nothing short of difficult to achieve. People often shame others to appear superior, pushing and hurting others to rise above it and reach that concept. Shaming others for their looks should not be necessary to claim beauty superiority. We are all different and beautiful in our

I’ve always hated the saying “Don’t forget who you are”, it used to fill my gut with anger. It implied that everybody else knew me better than I knew myself, that they knew the “real” me and I didn’t. The implication is that change is bad, but my life is a constant journey, every day I am

This poem is about the different coping mechanisms we use to keep ourselves together. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Every church has brick, mortar, and the stain glass windows. Brick. And mortar. Keep it together. Every notebook turned holy. Every poem turned prayer. And how many of us were just wingless birds

About  This poem is symbolic to show that the people in your life, the people you thought would be there forever, may just be an accessory for a while. You planned the rest of your life with that person, but your lives didn’t end up on that path. They hurt you along the way, but

             Mainstream media portrays a breakup as black and white. They make it seem like one day the girl is crying, mascara streaming down her face, eating chocolate ice cream on her bed, and the next she’s at a club with her friends dancing her worries away. Although both these