JAYU Youth Poetry Collection
shooting rubber bands at a funeral
my inner critic is always with me
and she sounds just like my mom
family's all in Scarborough, but we don't link
unless it's psalms twenty-three from the pastor
another cousin in the casket
I'm not sure if we're okay with that
but we all know how to mask it
my family ties feel less like cables / and more like rubber bands
my family ties feel less like cables / and more like rubber bands
'cause they have a habit of snapping
make your hand into a gun
words fly like elastic bands
shooting off your thumb
But what's a family anyway? a herd hurting in their private disarray
people who know all your weaknesses. people who hurt you in secret. ask you to take
all the pain and conceal it. who say sorry and don't need to mean it. Unconditional
loyalty is what we call love; family's all in the city but it's rare to link up,
'cause what's a family anyway?
people bonded by death, by birth, or blood
a group of people I'll always love
I'll always love you but
what's a family anyway?
I only see you for death or birth,
my blood a group of people I so fiercely love
in a complicated way.
By Yazmine Gray
Twitter: @yazminegray Instagram: @yazminegray
CAPTIVE
His hand, a maze, stained with metallic bruises. Nails run jagged. Fingers solid enough to put out my flames. His hands are half mine and pale. I ask him for the songs they play, and the sand they graze in a land that bleeds copper. They carry stories told only in hushes. I carry his bruises in homes built with empty stomachs. He can't see me. His bifocals smudged with clouds of smoke. Pupils of smog. His hands are desperate to clean the fog before I wake. He is eager to dial me home. I am eager for his war to end. His hands carry cigarettes and long for the reach of mine. Carrying seeds of desolate and delicate. Our pace is simple.
Home exists in the spaces of his silence. Only, it is in his hands that I see a captive.
By Maysam Abu Khreibeh
Instagram: @maysamghani
the opposite of a eulogy is a prophecy
and the clouds whispered to me that
you will outlive this / you will pull the stars from the sky
with your teeth / spit them out, grinning / your mouth
bloodied but brilliant / white-hot with flame / you have
taken blows that could fell giants / kept a quiet survival
tucked below your tongue / you will do this as long
as you live / but how you will live, darling / weaving
dreams like flowers in your hair / laughing until your
lungs burst to fireworks / loving and dancing as clumsily
as you do fiercely / yes / my blood says that it is so / and a
river would sooner stop than lie / yes / the darkness will
recede / a wave pulling reluctantly from the shore / yes
you will outlive this / yes, even this.
By Qurat Dar
Twitter: @DQur4t Instagram: @qthewriter
closer.
can you hear the way it feels
for the wind to kiss my face?
the sigh, the breath of air
that escapes my lips?
that sound contains Everything
i feel for you.
can you taste the way it feels
as i swim in the warmth
of the 3 o’clock sun?
the honey and cinnamon
that masks my face
can you feel the Peace
underneath your tongue?
close your eyes and walk backwards.
let the Earth hug your feet
in the prints they leave behind.
and as you step every step
as you climb every fall
as you take it apart
brick by brick
the house you built
around the bruised, broken thing
that once held
the brilliance of your baffling dreams
can you still say
that the choices you made
(i think you call them mistakes)
can you still Say they were wrong?
take my hand and i will show you
how i walk, blindfolded;
how i slip and fall and crawl
guided by Faith
in the way the Earth moves.
because every spin,
every rotation,
She brought me closer
to You.
By Myia Turner
First Love
Rising love,
Hands clenched,
I make my way to you,
Hope to see you before the rain,
You my love, I’ll break any law for
For you, flowers in my sweaty hands to
Give them to you, like before you left,
Me and you, you and me, I sing
For always and always, forever and forever
Hurting, on the inside from how long I’ve seen
You last, I lay my flowers on your grave.
By Reia Tariq
Instagram: @reiachu
"Express on the Express”
Where are we headed?
Next stop: real talk
Pay attention to the man who won't come in
Has his lady shouting
"Let me do my thing."
She's dressed in a suit
Her man in broken boots
As he steps on the brakes
Fleeing from the truth
Next stop: fallen
At the bottom there's a whole bunch of us broken
Vomiting our dreams
Lying to the homies about where we been
Ashamed to show weakness
Cause the the culture lies in pride
Cause our fragility should remain a secret
Cause you can’t pond what others don’t want
But yo they got soul here.
I see pain in gold pieces
Beauty in trash cans
Wisdom in empty cartons
Yo they got soul here.
Women and children with broken visions of human potential.
Astonishing addictions
That look like stories of rags to riches
But they got ditches?
With their family names on diamond coffins
Drowning in despair
Losing their hair-
Poor man carrying a message in a bottle
That he found washed up on the shore of the streets.
Next stop: clarity
Who I call "Lucid Lucy"
She makes it easy to feel like you're needed...
"Come from over there"
My momma says as we're leaving.
By Kelisha Daley
Instagram: @killerkeke
