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Selections

Image by JOHN TOWNER

The Mind (2022)

Poetry Collection & Other Writings

In the moments that I overthink, I am not the human. I am the mind, for the mind only exists in those moments. I am not the human, the thing of which houses the mind at any given time. I am the mind, the mind that is so expansive, so poisonous, so torturous that I can sometimes no longer tell what is real and what isn’t. What is real? Truly, what is real? Can you or I know? Could God know if there were one? I cannot exist in those moments to know, let alone tell. I am solely the mind. The mind that only hurts itself; the mind that is so posionness that it pains me to exist within it. Yes, you heard me right, live within it! And that is what it feels like at times. It feels as though the body, the human is operating on its own, somehow and some way, while, on the other hand, the mind is on its own, somehow telling the body how to operate. I must say that even is too close within quarters to how it feels. I feel distant from my body/ the human. But somehow I know it’s me, I know it’s linked to me, despite not knowing exactly who this ‘me’ is. Sometimes I feel as though I am on my way to knowing but then I lose it, or it just disappears, re-events itself, and transforms. I do know that life is full of transformations and metamorphosis. Life, I feel, has stages that connect to one another, or cycles as I prefer to call them. I am okay with that, I enjoy that part of life, for it keeps it exciting and innovative. It creates new opportunities and experiences; there is always, however, an end to those positive parts. The negative. The latent stages are what gets me the most. It is in those times where it feels as though eternity is wrapped in a globe, glazed over with ominous smoke, and as dark as one would presume nothingness would be. The kind of negativity that cloaks over me like an eternal darkness, the foreboding feeling of the abyss and the void.  

Breathe  (2023)

Poetry Collection & Other Writings 

For all that is known I know nothing. There isn’t a solid thing in my being that’ll allow for knowledge to stay present, identity to be consistent, or for words to stick and stay pressed against the reflection of life. I choose to live in so many realities out of sheer terror. It is not something I initially chose but imagination gifted me with this ability, thus, my embracement of it. Whether it be the clash of the sea against the high, stone castle or the dark wonderland with decrepit inhabitants, I live in peace. The worlds outside of them, the people who live and breathe in their earthly ways are what frighten me. They terrorize my thoughts and dreams and only make me want to scream and cry and rip my flesh off until I am no more. The worlds my mind creates and the ones that our supposed reality fosters, in all their fiendish-nightmarish decay, make me feel the closest to my reality. Let’s suppose, however, that none of it's real—that all that exists or is perceived to exist is just a figment of a shared consciousness. The interlockings of a single, sporadic consciousness, morphing and breathing and breaking and repairing a world, the world we live in today. 

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            This world makes me tried, much like how I make myself feel but the tiredness is what enables me to continue on. It isn’t out of motivation or a drive to make things better—it is because I know that here, for sure, I am able to rest and sleep and receive what my earthly being needs.

Why I Cut My Hair (2023)

A Realization

The feeling of the wind against the nape

of my neck awakens my body. For years

I thought this look wasn’t me, I struggled

with flashbacks of freshman and sophomore

year—my round cheeks growing gradually

in size, while my hair got shorter and shorter.

How self-conscious I felt, disgusting even. I 

thought ‘never again’, or ‘only when I am thin’.

 

Ah, there it is, ‘only when I am thin’. It is

amazing what the mind can do, how it can

make you feel, what it’ll make you focus on. 

I remember hearing that it was a ‘behavior’

to cut one’s hair short while sick. Out of the

many ‘behaviors’ I heard about, this one 

seemed the strangest to me. I guess, I too, reserved

short, pixie-cut, Mia Farrow, Twiggy-type hair 

styles for the increasingly thin-types. That or the 

bisexual, lesbian, queer stereotypes on Tumblr

during the 2010s. 

 

I am no longer the me I was for five years, the me

that had medium length, black hair who desperately

tried to escape all my problems behind darkness? 

Although part of that me still resides within, I

am no longer that raven-haired girl. I choose to

revel in my short, fiery red hair. The hair that

reminds me so much of Joan or Sinead, the

hair that makes me feel more like me than

I have in quite a while. The hair that connects

me closer to my authentic self. I don’t care

if I get casted as the girl who’s two months

out of a breakup. I am, after all, that girl, but

that’s not 100% why I cut my hair. 

 

It’s a ‘screw you’ to ana, to my insecurities about

my face shape. It’s a ‘hell yeah, this is who I 

wanna be’ in the face of my old self. It’s a

‘I’m here and I’m me’ to those whose eye

I happen to catch. It’s a way of reclaiming

the parts of myself that got neglected, while

I cared too much about a boy for too long.

Shorter and shorter I’ll go if I want, and I do.

Unnamed Poem (February 2024)

Poem

The deep wave that plunges me into the depths

of my depressions. The coldness closes in on me as soon

as my skin is pierced by the wave. It stings as I begin

to suffocate on the massive force around me. It

consumes me, as though I’ve plunged

into the Mariana Trench, and I float helplessly

alone in the vast mouth of danger. The vulnerability that

penetrates my being pushes out a forcefield that’s

supposed to protect me, but I often wonder why that field

comes out when it doesn’t need to. Am I in danger? Do I

need protecting in this moment? Not usually, no, but

the mind perceives it as such.

© 2024 by Emily L. Powered by Coffee and the Absurd

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