Xanadu
 

The putrescent petals  were pried away,  and my sepal had surely scraped. You cut me of my dignity— but I grew  with vulnerability. I could've been nodeless,  rootless in my wrath— but instead,  I poured my energy into blooming, transforming pain  into photosynthesis. The sun reached for me. The rain spilled over me. The air moved through me.  My stamen and pistil made love — and I flourished.  My receptacle held not only flowers, but resilience.

You create a mold, carefully handbuilding each part and  wedging it to remove imperfections until it is bone dry   and leather-hard. The clay body you created, thinking it will hold, thinking it is glazed to perfection. But it isn’t. Someone sees a crack, the greenware to your design that you claimed was scored and slipped  to your liking— to their  liking. A mold once keenly crafted has begun to come apart. But why? It was made with such careful planning—  burnishing each pa

The chassis is my body, tires my feet,  axles my arms, and the engine my heart. This is it, flying as if I were a bird,  trees become blurs. Nothing else on the mind but controlling my body.              the combination of a million tiny metal pieces  coming together is my peace. Like the car I have become, peace  can go just as fast as it comes.  Incapable of permanence in one spot.

The circuit is closed— the path has all loops, loops with the incandescent light, the light of your foreseeable truth. Plans that have no thought.  Why does the lumens not shine my way? The constant flicker — the gleam of uncertainty dimming the glass envelope to let the objective flow like the measure of wattage to get to where you want to be. The voltage in a human to succeed. The constant reminder— do not fail.

In the closing pages of Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street , Esperanza shares her desire for an independent and unrestrictive home. A place where she can write her own life. A life free of objectification and gender guidelines. Cisneros’ style can be categorized as prose poetry.   A House of My Own  Sandra Cisneros   Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My bo

Even when I am unlit, I promise patient light. Strike me— I steadily shine for everyone I brighten rooms. I soften corners. I make myself useful. The flame flickers higher the harder I try. A melt pool forms at my feet like a quiet surrender, warm and easy to ignore. I tell myself, this is what shining feels like. But the more I glow, the deeper I sink— melting middle walls weakening inward. The tunneling begins. I burn. I forget the rest of myself. The room is now radiant an

Crystals dancing                                                                              with glistening beauty and unique angles. So much to offer, yet easily overlooked. As they descend, they disappear                                                       not lost, but they become a whole. Laying there, hidden in the crowd, getting covered by millions, unless you try to understand the intricate pieces, that shapes its elegance.                                          

Stargazers watch you, twinkling in the sky; they see a tiny point in a deep, vast ocean, just like all the other bright dots  on that dark canvas. They don’t see the millions of years you have lived— the life now long behind you. Perhaps you have already gone, your life extinguished in a bright supernova. Perhaps you collapsed  until you extinguished yourself, hydrogen becoming helium becoming carbon— Dying the death of a dwarf star. They cannot know, from their safe earthly

My color is vibrant,  hours of work housed  within my stitches and chains. Soft and delicate yarn, warming the tender skin underneath my surface.  A stitch rips, my creation being reversed one stitch at a time.  I am powerless unable to defend my intricate design. My yarn unravels, chains coming undone. Ditched in the dumpster, the skin I once warmed  now eerily cold. My colors have been coated, drowned in suffering. I hold on to the few strings left, trying to piece together

Mars Stephanie Gomez Like a god of war still feeling vulnerable – I fight for my life. Stars  Matthew Santamaria Raindrops tapping glass like the rhythmic beat of jazz swinging through the stars. Hades Camora McKay Just a pour of peace when I drink from the darkness– at home in Hades. Rising Fire Finn Brown Woke up this morning sun on the horizon–that big ball of fire. Night  Jamarra Pazchica I look to the stars when I feel angry or dark– healed by the night’s light. ​ Unansw