BAS Poetry: Here’s Mine, Now Show Me Yours
Broke-Ass Stuart is now accepting poetry submissions to be featured in his Arts and Culture column. Read on to learn how to be showcased on BAS Poetry.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Written & curated by Corinne Avganim
As I’ve been reading the incredibly beautiful and raw work from our community, I feel compelled to put my money where my mouth is, and show you mine before I blast yours out to the world. Below is a flood of processing that came out of watching Moonlight (2016) for the first time with my mom and aunt. It was heartbreaking, visually stunning, awe inspiring, and strangely relatable – and I don’t geek out over movies the way most do. In fact, I rarely go to the theater and tend to opt for Netflixing in my own time (and usually end up taking a nap halfway in). But, this was different and I could tell by the poster, alone. After a quick debrief with my family, I couldn’t get these words to stop swirling around my brain and dumped them onto the page the second I could. I don’t think it’s amazing, I just know it’s mine. I hope this encourages more of you to share what you know is yours.
Moonlit
Tired isn’t the word
Exhausted
Suffocated
Gasping for life
She moves toward you
Like a shadow in the dark
Creeping in without warning
Stealing your thoughts
Overriding your desire to care
About anything
Indifference is what becomes of you
You lose your will to speak
To prove a point
To be right
Any character that defines you defies you in a flood of exodus
Overpowered by need and nostalgia
You wait for the day when you return to self
Down to the second
You count to your next smile
Your next genuinely spoken, “I love you”
“You’re a lucky girl,” she says
“To not have mother who’s a crackhead”
But what’s the difference?
Her illness is no better
Like a pipe to the mouth, she brings endless compensation to her lips
Filling an endless void with falsities and pastries
Moonlight speaks and I am Chiron
Black
Little
To submit a poem to be featured here, email poetry@brokeassstuart.com with your 100% original piece of work, full name, age, city, links to social media, and (optional) biographical blurb.
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