Food for thought

Emily has explored the art of poetry to disect topics beyond cooking and baking. She hopes her writings may call attention to important issues and aid in understanding and making others feel seen. Trigger warning for talk of self harm, eating disorders, and other heavy topics. Continue at your own discretion.

What We Thought We Knew About Growing Up

Canals in your hands carry

Irreparable channels of love;

A Pythagorean chalice

Beckons to spill

And stain spinning

Heartstrings like a

Golden thread of

Unweilding legacy.

Glass like glitter

Punctuates a false picture

A fractured frame cannot cage

A swollen bruise

And broken brain.

Yet the sun crowds the lens with a profound boast

Climbing limbs cocoon an untouched spirit inside

Imagination’s prolific stage of iridescent puddles

As ore sprinkles an expiring hope and stains our

Unsuspecting faces with ruby splotches of time

Unwasted on the maintenance of threadbare love.

Veins burrow, like connection once worked to sow

A pristine condition,

Connection untortured by

Roars as we cut our ties

Like molded

Thatchings on a

Too- small roof,

In a stenchy bog,

Under the iron-clad

Raincloud that

Inevitably uproots the foundation we forged alone.

What I Thought I Knew About Growing Up

White walls fill in for “Once Upon A Times”,

Learning medication names instead of ABCs,

That “Happily Ever After” can only come by

Breaking a child

-proof seal.

Test tubes are

My training wheels,

A wiry frame,

Only can

Stimulate smiles and positrons

Deep in marrow,

To brew

Bubbling tonics, gilded marionette strings

With a

Rotten fixation on

Supporting the paralyzed,

And two

Talons entrenched in a gelatinously juvenile

Brain,

Deliciously malleable like a second’s silence,

To a

Sirenous song of harmonious subordination.

The End.

It’s inescapable! I’ve cut my pages to erase the words,

To bind my own tale with scavenged stuffings of torn

Friendship threads and regurgitated tales of salvation

From isolation, monsters I conjure in the safety blanket.

But hospital corners are broken by flailing bounds of

Fury I emit in the unclaimed trenches of child night-

Time terror, days forever eclipsed by my mind’s very

Own brand of overwhelming green army men. Forever

Flooding the recesses of my suffering and lamentation,

Sowing carmine rivers in the veins of preservation with

An unforeseeable end that is yet to hang this chapter.

Lili’s Lament

Lilipads embellish the vulnerable stillness

Of limitless turnings of rock below.

A shimmering scale tantalizes and taunts

the floor, beckoning me from my station with

Each fabulous revolution.

Nothing settles in the water.

Bubbles dance with spontaneous mischief,

Uniting the bottomfeeders with those

Who gallantly bask in the sun’s rippling blanket.

The bubbles flow as they please

Bobbing up and down to the

Tune of a wave’s triumphant symphony.

Each a rocketing lifeforce in

A dutiful two-step with destiny.

No matter my conscious' weight

I cannot falter to a desolate drift.

A school of effervescent clownfish

Tickle with their fins below my skin

A not-so-comical reminder from

Where I will never belong even

When my aspirations sink

Faster than a tormented anchor.

A slimy stranger steps on my back

And a new home is found on an

Unfamiliar friend.

Pink and purple fascinators adorn

My neighbors in fragrant splendor,

A contrasting and beautiful garnish

To the novel Blob I give refuge to-

The sentimental motley crew a

Stranger’s new inspiration as

We float on, together.

A dutiful two-step with destiny.

To Hell and Back

Untitled

My body is not your art piece.

My soul crawled through Tartarus and leeched on to your compliments.

And the cost? The weight of war is unbearable.

Shoulders ache with burden and new fear cripples my words.

New vivacious skips trip my rediscovering feet as I dance with my ghost.

A ghost with plastered smiles and papier-mâché confidence strewn throughout.

The soul’s string a recycled twine stained with disdain and terror.

But my soul is mine.

My heart is stronger now.

I do not need your critique.

I do not need your mockery.

My soul is mine

and though a stranger may mock me in the mirror,

The naïve joy of life ihas returned, this time with armor.

Dear power in the sky,

Dear demon in the ground,

Why did you make me this way?

Spiritless wondries plague incessantly,

No second to breathe.

You raptured my soul

A vulture relentless with hatred

Why did I suffer so?

I was naive, maybe

But you slithered worms beneath my skin

Maggots festered under the surface of lies

They choke me and deplete me

Why did you make me so?

I fight my marrow, and I'm lost

My heart is too heavy

With lies and fears and tears

Dear demon,

When will i be okay?

Will i ever be okay?

Take my parasite and let me go

Let me be

Dear demon,

When will i be okay?

Will i ever be okay?

Take my parasite and let me go

Let me be

Spindling Wheel

Stranger in the Mirror

My life is a spindling wheel

I weave together broken glass

And childhood smiles.

Tick tock, tick tock

Spin the wheel back

Turn out gilded dreams

And strings of peace.

It cuts my fingers

Irreverent sores.

Mockery.

I dream to knit golden works

Of steadfast self-harmony

Of feats and deeds others envy.

Tick tock, tick tock

It's tarnished with panic.

Spin the wheel back,

And try again.

I walk with new burdens

Shoulders sore from miserable fears

The mirror is my enemy

Who is that?, i wonder

A new smile knocks off the ancient mask

But

The girl is a stranger

New look

New terrors

New truths

Is it all worth is?

Parasite

Parasite invaded my head

Attacking my hair with vengeful claws

My soul scarred

My brain no longer the same

My words are not my own

My actions are your discretion.

Parasite stole those I loved most,

What I most loved in me

I became the monster

Was it even a parasite at all?

Biggest Fears

When asked what my biggest fear is,

I say I’m scared of the dark.

Because lying is easier than the truth.

Maybe I could say losing a tooth

Or being eaten by a shark,

But never heights, or knives, or death.

I wonder what you’ll say as I take my last breath.

Because my biggest fear is you will see me,

As I see myself.

And that terrifies me.

Tattle Tale

Tattle Tale, Tattle Tale, why do you pick on me?

Poking and prodding each statement,

Each question,

Each confession.

Tattle Tale, Tattle Tale, why can’t you let me be?

Go to sleep, put it to rest,

Stop screaming,

Let me be.

Sunny Desires

Today the sun came out.

The flowers blossomed and the cicadas sang.

I smiled today.

Tomorrow it may rain,

Perhaps Mr. Sun will say hello again.

I’m no longer afraid of my friend leaving,

Of the rain washing away cheer and bringing gloom.

Tomorrow it may rain,

But the sun will return again soon.

And I,

I will smile again.

An(n)a

She called me names,

A destitute shell was all she left me

She pulled my hair and unwound my curls

Leaving the fallen as a reminder of my sorrow

She knocked me down and gave me bruises,

And offered no hand to pull me back up.

Her fierce grip held me down.

But her intoxicating beauty made me want her to stay.

Clues

Her eyes held water-stained fables,

Her arms held secrets.

Pain.

Her mind held ominous storms,

Her words seldom held meaning,

Lies.

White Lighter

Potent gasoline cries down the scratched frame,

Staining her fingers with warning and tears of those lost.

But the orange glow brings her closer to her heroes.

Her legs feel too heavy to rise and spin,

And her arms cannot find strength through the burning pain.

But the orange glow dances for her when she can not.

As the blazing dance dies down, she wonders,

If she too can be so beautiful, and instantly gone.

So deadly but so needed.