The three years I was enrolled in high school, a few poems found a home in the Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center‘s Crossroads anthologies. It was the first time I found my name in print outside of class publications, and I include them here as the very start of my portfolio.
My Mother
originally published in Crossroads V, 2017
winner, Cville Pride Poetry & Prose High School Award, 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book
context (for my mother & those who wonder about her)
Text
My mother asks me how I can love
a body that looks like mine–
I wonder
how long
she has hated herself.
I remember the first time I heard the word “gay”
It was on the car radio
It dripped down the AC ent
as if someone had spilled a cherry slushy
My mother tried to clean it up
but my fourth grade mouth had already been stained
red.
All the post-it notes in my bible were
yellow but
This one was red I read
that verse
like a suicide note
from someone I used to love
And then I turned the page into
papier mache
and built for myself
a mask
Like those art projects we did in elementary school
that I assume the teacher threw away
because I never saw them again
If there is no cure
for a sickness
you die
That’s what I belived
at age thirteen
When I took too many pills one night
My mother was (quote)
“Surprised” (unquote)
What did you want from me?
Did you expect a quiet concealer
over rainbow veins? Flames
are never subtle
And you would have to burn my queerness
to the roots.
I have grown through cracks in your
pavement, Mother.
A peony in a snowstorm:
I thought you would be proud.
But, as you have told me countless times,
Pride
is a sin.
L’appel du Vide
originally published in Crossroads VI, 2018
Text
This morning I didn’t make my bed.
I woke up as tired as when
I lay down
and for some reason
I took it out on the sheets.
And I can’t go back and do it over again
because I left the house hours ago
and for some reason that bothers me,
the unfinished act of waking up
haunting my footsteps.
I am nothing but suicide watch hospital visits
the prick of the IV so familiar
to my veins
I am a lighthouse deserted by the sea
and still I watch
night after night
for waves that will never crash
on these shores again
You know that feeling
when something presses against your throat
and the tension leaves you choking?
That’s what today is.
Today is hollow.
Did I fall or let go?
I can’t remember.
I mean, I do.
At least, I remember remembering.
I remember touching the memory hesitantly
and feeling it crawl out from underneath me
unafraid to go
Maybe my wishes never come true
because I never look at the stars anymore–
at least, never with hope.
Or maybe my eyelashes have held on
my whole life
refusing to float
onto my cheekbones
I wouldn’t blame them.
Am I a plane crash
or a fallen star?
Either way,
embers that refuse to light
tug at my fingertips.
Maybe I let go.
sometimes I forget I knew you
originally published in Crossroads VII, 2019
finalist, Crossroads VII Writing Contest
Text
sometimes I forget I knew you
and I think that’s for the best
(sometimes) (maybe) (I suppose)
other times I remember–
maybe too much.
how the room sounded like velvet and
you didn’t like the rug (“too alarming”)
and I was always enough (for someone else).
and then there are the in-betweens,
the one-time-this-thing-happened kinds of conversations,
those I-know-you-from-somewhere’s, that board game you always beat me at
even though
I cheated.
as if the game pieces were secrets.
as if I remember the rules.
sometimes when I cried
you said the personification of the causes of my anxiety would help me cope
and I didn’t say that I went to therapy too (so I know all your tricks)
and I didn’t say that this room could sing
and I didn’t say that my shaking hands were dancers and the game pieces were clouds
and I didn’t say that in my anxiety workbook you have a star beside your name
(right up there with “open spaces” and “failure”)
my eyes flicker like an undecided motel sign
unsure about the vancancy
(I don’t know if you’re staying another night)
I said “don’t be a stranger”
as if I ever knew you in the first place.
you said “this isn’t the answer”
as if I asked.
as if I don’t already know
that you only hold what things aren’t the answers.
as if I don’t know process of elimination.
as if my illness doesn’t fill every hole inside me
with the wrong answers
already.
how can I trust my gut when all it ever
says is abort mission.
how can I follow my heart when it’s living
wherever the opposite of healing is.
I stopped ripping off my fingernails and decided to let them grow out
and yesterday I had to ask someone to open a soda can for me. like fixing self-destruction never opened a can.
like getting healthy doesn’t mean easy.
like having ten nails instead of eight doesn’t get you praise.
and I let my tears grow into ghosts
and I scattered the game pieces on that rug you hated
and I live in the in-betweens now.
and sometimes I don’t even remember that
sometimes I forget I knew you.
and I think that’s for the best.
Curvature: A Triptych for the Spine
originally published in Crossroads VII, 2019
correction: the artist’s name is spelled Liliane Lijn. you can find the art here.
several typos are corrected in the plaintext below.
Text
I.
in 6th grade, I failed my flexibility test in gym.
as if the universe thought a girl should be able to bend farther than her chubby thighs.
as if it thought not being able to touch your toes was a kind of ugliness.
(and all the stars know ugly is a war crime.)
I am the war;
my spine is a weapon–
rusty. abandoned.
my back is a glass wall–
birds fly into me when they don’t believe
in the sun anymore.
my bones scabbed over the broken glass
as if they forgot healing is ugly before it is beautiful
as if the only thing this body gave me was a one-way plane ticket to self-hatred.
II.
I own a spine like a match–
the kind you can light on anything.
like the ones boys in movies strike on the back pockets of their jeans
like being allergic to cigarettes
like boys giving you pins and needles
(and you, not being able to explain why)
like boys blowing smoke in your face and never asking or
apologizing
strike me on concrete.
strike me on
a ribcage.
I used to hope I’d die alone–
for who am I to believe in the sun
when my matchstick spine won’t light?
III.
there are twelve thoracic vertebrae in the middle of your spine.
they almost hold me
together
they almost light me
on fire–
what is a weapon without the enemy?
a ribcage without lungs–
a spine so brittle it
breaks?
I can touch my toes now that I
dissociate from my collarbones
when I close my eyes.
as if that’s success.
as that’s something I should be proud of.
pride
like flight
like breaking glass
like denouncing smoke-blowing boys
through clenched teeth
casualties of this
war:
the difference between
holding your breath and
choking.
touching your toes and
servitude.
my fingertips: judge and jury
my lips a prison
I
bend
for this sentence.
johanna e. hall 