(Or the time I paid a lot of money to be published in a real, live, poetry book.)
Hey kids, this is for real. Speak For Yourself is publishing a book. And a lot of amazing poets are in it. Buy one, maybe?
Okay, that's all.
Here's one of the poems I read at Thursday's poetry slam:
November 12.
Nineteen years, 31 days, and I'm still
breathing
the same air I've always tasted,
clouds and oxygen tainted
with flecks of a blue-green mist.
with flecks of a blue-green mist.
This isn't the first time I've wondered
what the world is made of,
and it isn't the second time, either.
And I mean, what is the earth made of,
beside dirt and clouds we can't touch?
I'm counting leaves that fall off the
trees,
because every winter everything dies.
Everything dies and we all die just a
little bit more every day.
This isn't a cry for salvation,
everyone know you have to
whisper for salvation.
You have to try without asking, earn
those angel wings on your own.
You can't cheat on this one.
My hands are turning purple.
Touch me again and I might crack
into a thousand slivers of ice covered
in blood.
I need you to keep your distance,
and I need you to breathe out my name
every day,
even a small whisper will do, darling.
I've cried out your name in my dreams
3 nights; 87 times.
I just need your hand to hold mine,
because I found out what the sky tastes
like,
it tastes like a hallelujah.
But this, this right now, this
is what a hallelujah looks like.
This is what a hallelujah feels
like.
Yeah, I'm a coward who's afraid of fear
and hope and rejection and you
But I'm a coward who's touched the ice
with bare fingertips,
only to find herself inside of a
miracle.
So here's to you, darling.
Hallelujah.
Forever Yours,
Rachel.
