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
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Cover Photo c/o AGRODAILY