Removed for magazine entry... I’m keeping my fingers crossed!!
-Damaris Ann

“I miss you”
The uninclined
Underused
Most important
3-word formula
Marches across
The bright screen
In a black place

“I love you”
A teardrop is
Inclined at
The overrated
Exhausted
Wrongly accused
Framed and punished
3-word sentence
That poisons
The English
Language with
Its well-meant
But hollow dance
Over the tongue

The year is 1874. It is a cold day in November, and as the world awakens in the small town of Clifton, Prince Edward Island, a little girl with a big name cries out in her mother’s arms. Yes, Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of the classic wonders of our world, was once a little baby. Her story may not be so different than yours. Or maybe…it is.

White paint was such an underrated tool. It made an empty canvas that much emptier, doing away with even the pretense of texture. It softened the color spectrum into kinder things, nothing too sharp on the eye, but not quite pastel. Just gentle.

I started off the year I turned 20 on a somewhat hopeful note. I had learned to let go of my demons, but yet they still haunted me. My depression was better, but it was still there. In February of 2018 (two months before my 20th birthday) I hit an all-time low. I was becoming more and more sick, and had fallen to the point where I could no longer work out or do any of my normal exercise.
If in one unfortunate moment
You took everything that I own
Everything you've given from heaven above
And everything that I've ever known

“The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh” Proverbs 11:17
“For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”- James 2:13
“For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” James 1:20

This is America.

The land of diversity and freedom and change.

Change is good, but we’re seeing too much change. We’re seeing the kind of change that tears us down; eliminating the beautiful and weak in its wake.

The New York Capitol is a beautiful building, but its foundation was built on sand.

No, this is not a post of random musings.

We recently saw New York legalize abortion up to nine months as well as during delivery. People around me are applauding this new law, but I’m sick.

I’m sick and angry. Heartbroken, too.

Smoke covers your city,
The sun is red as blood,
Dry of human pity —
Your love with an asterisk isn’t love.

Of pity’s gentle rain
Not a drop is seen —
You fight the fires of pain
With bloodshed — like gasoline.

~

(White bearded fools,
And flint hearted mothers,
Bequeathed you evil rules,
And closed your hearts to others.)

~

Like lions who crouch for their prey,
The strong lie in wait for the weak,
And you walking by every day
Don’t speak for the ones who can’t speak.

I just can’t
I can’t do it
I have no strength
To avail me
In my struggles,
My pain and sorrow
My hardships and trials
What can I do?
“There’s nothing you can do”
I’m tempted to believe
It seems so true
It could not get better
“Forget it all
Give in
You always be helpless
Never changing
You’ll never amount
To anything”

But the Spirit inside me says
“NO!”
The Ghost inside reassures:
“I’ve given you a weapon
That’s powerful and crushing
Over the enemy!

Sweet, strong, and loud,
They float through the air
Telling me “Come!”
Dance, if I dare

I lift up my head,
My heart jumps upward.
I must go dance to
The music I’ve heard.

I step on the floor,
Caught up in life’s song,
My hands start to clap,
My feet bound along!

I whirl and I twirl,
I slide and I leap,
The music’s notes through
My heart slowly seep.

Tapping and turning,
Clapping and spinning,
The notes and the music,
The noise and the singing.