Poem

I could spend hours just calculating myself, but that isn’t what poetry is, the great poets said, that just isn’t what a poet does

So here it is, third person, she veers away from self aggrandizement in order to self aggrandize

So here it is, third person, the sort of good girl is becoming a real woman now, songs that used to mention ages of such distance, here it is, reached that slash and everything and nothing has changed

Fear of death, the young girl fears of death so she veers closer to it, the black plague is infectious, that wanting a perfect blackness is so infectious

But whatever now, rejection masturbates, tries to find its own truth, useless, not a man, cannot find that seed anywhere here

So, continue on pathway, little red riding hood doomed at start, lets wolf fuck her mercilessly, lets the forest grow all around her, but still continues, not even pretending to be on path, but still continues to grandmother’s house, the path has turned frail and her distraction titters loudly on the brink of destiny’s dead end

Intimidated by virtue, scared to go near it, stain it: so veer clear of it!

Tragedy’s Disciples

“Whatever is potent is rich,” she said. To speak alarmingly is to speak well

A shooting happens, the neophytes ramble like rivers, rushing, rushing to prove their points.

A shooting happens, the innocent were killed, the neophytes ramble like rivers, rushing, rushing to prove their points

Pity masks too much, masquerade through life speaking alarmingly!

A shooting has happened

She strokes her body like a cat

Yoga poses make her feel versatile

men make her feel small so she pretends to be big

the day wheezed all around her; she dodged the phlegm like bullets.

This woman is an omen

crouching, she tells me to begin sewing now

“Sewing what?” I stumbled. Sewing back up your pride

So I stitch it, cut off the frays, wear it like 7 jeans, take it off at night, here.

The boy snores somewhere tonight, this woman is a peeled orange, awake, somewhere else, as bitter as sparkling sandals on a crime scene

Tatiana Dubin, Age 17, Grade 11, Hewitt School, Silver Key