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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at LMU chapter.

Preface From the President: An English major, editor and writer, I am a self-professed word nerd. I love beautiful sentences and sayings, and could go on for days waxing poetic about my adoration for Sir William Shakespeare. My grandmother introduced me to poetry from an early age, and gifted me with many Shel Silverstein books of poems that I still love to look through. I am lucky to call fellow senior English major Noa Gardner a friend of mine; Her Campus LMU is lucky enough to share his poetry with our readers. Enjoy! –Evelyn Hitchcock

 

Bathroom Mirror

I find myself in that mirror again with shaving cream

blazed white across my cheeks pure like the wings of snowy owls

and my reflection is a stranger to me

 

because I am beautiful now.

 

My biceps flex tight with every drag of the razor

across my skin and with each pass,

 

I spit and wash and pass and spit

and splash the blade with warm water

which echoes up and empty over the sink

 

and every so often,

buttons of blood peak through the curve of my jaw

like poppies in a snow-covered field

 

And she watches me,

 

eyes blue as love gazing over

my shoulders, chest, back

 

and desire overruns her and soon

we are writhing together on the cool tile,

 

breath billowing from parted lips

until the bathroom mirror fogs and ripples.

 

I’m Walking In A Field of Tall Cotton

I’m walking in a field of tall cotton while blood runs

blue down the length of my arms and the air smells like

 

the first girl I ever loved.

 

She told me that she often dreamt about walking into the ocean

and never coming back, how she could only sleep

in the darkness of closets because it made her feel small again,

 

because life was so much bigger than she was.

 

And I guess she was so preoccupied with that memory,

so lost in the simple blackness of that makeshift womb

that she hadn’t noticed

 

the wetness that had gathered between her thighs

 

which bled and stained through

the white rivers of her dress like carnations in the bloom

 

This must be the day I burst, she said.

I always knew I was bound to be ruined. 

 

Rivers

I gashed my face open the other night shaving

and made a wound as wide as the sea.

I could not stop the blood from racing down my neck,

black and thin, as if it too were mourning its own passing.

 

I once dreamt that we were walking through

the woods holding hands, moonlight carving out

our bodies, until we happened upon a dark river.

 

You helped me out of my clothes as

I slipped you out of your dress and

I watched the cold water break

over the white of your untouched skin and

you told me that you missed me,

that whenever things get to be too much,

you fashioned circlets and purity rings out of

twigs and thorns from bramble bushes and

adorned them while you slept.

 

And maybe this is my way of grieving for you:

by cutting my skin whenever my face

becomes too rough and instead making it

smooth like the inside of your thigh,

hoping to strip myself down to joy,

but this dark river still fills me full of missing.

 

I could not stop the blood from pouring out my wound

but the sight of it calmed me.

 

Tulips & Roses

 

In the dark,

And whilst I slept/

 

blood tapped

out of my nose

like a faucet

 

quick, and thin,

and all at once/ that

 

smeared my hands with

bright streaks/ that

 

pooled in a rusty brook

behind my head/ and

 

clumped my hair

in half-wet circles

of tulips and roses

*

Cover Photo c/o AGRODAILY