Wet hair clings to my cheeks
salty from the rain
Drops like tears slide down my nose
as the gray of the sky peers down upon me
Barefoot in the grass
for a few moments
I forget about the life I am crushing below
With my eyes closed

A ransacked village in India is where my lineage began
Women.
Women, I will
And
Can never, ever know.
Tribulations my western brain
Cannot comprehend.
They made me.
I have the blood of
Hundreds

To you I’m broken
To you I’m like a flavor that wouldn’t last
You took one bite
And spat me out real fast
Now this mark remains and it will never ever go away
To you I’m broken
I stretched myself across the world

An act of courage is what I call,
 In the eye of a parent a plummeting fall.
An hour-long lecture will send him on his way.
 It just seems like another reason to run away.
These are words of wisdom you should borrow.
 It will be better tomorrow.

“To Strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Thou shalt never give up,
What is rightfully his,
Never whimper away from fears,
Never give away their tears,
Fight for what is right,
Inside the brightest of light,
We shall all have,

With winter gone, she can THROW her window open wide
With spring arriving, she can dance in bright SUNSHINE.
This is what it is to LIVE without regret;
To know she can NEVER FORGET, only move on.
With BLUE above, so open, so clear and bright

A bright desire shines, wanting to be noticed.
Throughout the day,
she begins to lose hope, starting
to diminish as if she were to disappear.
Fading to nothing more than a shadow
of what once was.

The coffin wood grabs at my clothes
The wood chokes me
The darkness attacks me
The weariness crawls around me
When it opens the sun grabs me
I am back

This man is rueful,
This man was done,
This man let go, temptation had won.
This man was punished, for things of great crime,
This man left a sod to eat on a dime.
This man, crushed and torn,
This man was tired and worn.
This man, turned to a book.

I messed up with my life
Now I get held with a knife
I am out here trying to survive
I’m glad I’m still alive
I sit in JDC
Thinking how my life is going to be
My dad told me I would be aborted
To my mom I was important

I am an athlete,
trying to train hard;
to reach the top.

SMACK!
I get knocked down,
but then I get right back up.

To continue on.
To be a champion.
I am an athlete.

The start of the race isn’t always easy
They say to just put one foot in front of the other
Then repeat
How can you repeat that when you’re racing to find yourself?

In my poem “Out of this World,” I explore the theme of oppression and the ways in which Leonard Peltier’s Prison Writings and Rachel Zucker’s “Paying Down the Debt: Happiness” evidence this central theme.

Life has been a roller coaster,
it’s had missing tracks,
and breakdowns,
and plenty of bumps,
but I don’t stop.
I don’t stop in the middle of the ride,
even though there might be a downfall.
But I’m not saying there hasn’t been high places,

The first box of society is the family, were born into, the box referred to as home, where we are made and broken. Willingly kept within four lines, that we’ve been conditioned of what boundaries, can and will not be crossed.

I’m hanging from the edge.
Nothing stands between me
and falling but my own waning strength.
What if I fall? What if I seriously hurt myself?

I am but a girl with scars,
Not those that are seen,
The kind buried beneath it all,
I am but a girl with a dream,
Like any other you will see,
I am unique,
But still like any other,
I’ve been thrown,
And hit,
And threatened,