poetryfest

I keep thinking
about the time in high school
when you drew
me
a map of the city,
I still have it somewhere.
It was so easy
to get lost
in a place where all the trees
look the same.
And now
every time I see
a missing person’s poster
stapled to a pole,
all I can think is
that could have been me.
Missing,
disappeared.

But there are no
posters for people
who just never came back
from vacation, from college,
from life.
You haven’t killed yourself
because you’d have to commit to a
single exit.
What you wouldn’t give to be your cousin Catherine,
who you watched
twice in one weekend get strangled nude
in a bathtub onstage
by the actor who once
filled your mouth with quarters at
your mother’s funeral.
The curtains closed and opened again.
We applauded until
our hands were sore.

But you couldn’t shake the image of
her lifeless body,
the way she hung there like a
marionette with cut strings.
And now every time you try to write a poem,
it feels like a
eulogy.
So even though you haven’t
found the perfect ending yet,
you keep writing.
For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost
souls
who never got their own
missing person’s poster.
Because as long as there are words on a page,
there is still hope for an unfinished exit
to find its proper
ending.

WAR Poem: Unbroken Voices, by Rehan Meftah

Bombs are dropping
while everyone is watching
Blood is streaming like a waterfall
Cries are reverberating
As if a huge monster is invading
With its scary face and cruel nature
Children cries
fears from the skies
They don’t see no
flies nor butterflies
this time people
comes with lies
Homes are broken
Families are broken
They want to silence us
but we can’t be silent
They want to shatter us
but we can’t be broken
Because it is our land
That was stolen
But it is only words
That are spoken
as if they are golden