I am a writer and I've always known it.
Even when my feeble self-esteem conspired against my urge to pick up a pen.
I carried it around
like you carry relics
my pens.
Remained tethered to them.
I write now.
Perhaps because I am not a talker.

There's dirt under my fingernails
There's pen marks on my hand
I don't know how they got there
I just don't understand
I'm curled up in a corner
My stomach is tied in knots
There's something crawling in my throat
I can't connect the dots
I've lost the feeling in my arm
From clutching it to my head
Crying up the distance
That they should have made instead
Faintly in the backdrop
They simmer in something mean
I wash my hand with soapy water
But the marks can still be seen
All I hear are glasses
They smash towords the floor
All I smell is putrid gas
From the night out just before
I'm getting kind of sleepy
And we're past the midnight mark
But it's difficult to dream
When the dreams you made are dark
But nontheless I'm sleeping
I move but make no sound
And I wake up in the morning
There's empty bottles all around
I don't know what happened to you
Because the laughter falls like sand
But there's dirt under my fingernails
And pen marks on my hands.

- Anisah Mariah

The pens I went
to bed with left
streaks of ink
on my sheets and
pillowcases. We
soiled these
sheets with
unleashed intimacy,
with authenticity,
with validation,
with imagination
and creativity.

And when we
finished, when we
had jotted thoughts
as clear as we
could, we drifted
off to sleep. When
I woke from my
dreams, I would look
at the product of
this conception,
full of pride.

Then I’d look down
and see the blots
across my body,
my bed, my sheets,
and chuckle at the
mess it takes to
create these darlings.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow
(Alek the Poet)

In the weirdest turn of events that day
As a cop toting guns and pepper spray
I gathered an urge to pen my first ode
In my lunch hour, before hitting the road

To sirens and light of my precinct's space
not a stanza wrote, yet my mind's apace
the pen's the problem; confidence recede
Pondered a visit to a friend, indeed

Thoughtful I'm moving, this old clue I'd act
on Brooklyn's pen thief; kleptomaniac
acquired from him, an ink dipping quill
of Huia birds, still boxed with its bill

Case solved; on the back of the bill it hints
"Dear Mayor, pen's for poems; lead's for thugs."

Fervent warriors come upon a field,
A trickle of men storming the grassy abyss,
prepared with shields upon their hearts
and weapons ready at the finger tips.
Their hearts oscillating to the war cries
and to the sounding drummer's march.
A prevalent threat casting shadows overhead;
Awaiting the freedom bell and the open air,
the men charge with their pens cocked
and their ink basins filled to the brim.

Kyra, Dad's got some paper and pens
and that's it
A cup of tea at 1am'll
push him just a little bit further
to finish all of his scrawl
about the things in the world you deserve
and how he'll go get it all

He'll push the pen to the page
at an age that you can't read or write
But it's more about holding himself accountable
to the crawling days

and if your smile stays
at least he'll know he did some things right

By the time you read this
you'll be learning how to doggy paddle
Through swimming pools full of stuffed animals, on tuesdays
And on days that start with "S"
You'll be air lifted in a fairy costume
to the civic center
so we can see the what's it's on Ice

And i promise I'll stop smoking

and at night you'll have a team of interpretive dancers
teaching you and your 9 ponies the classics
in a better way than I can tell em...cuz I have this whole monotone thing...that I do

But I'll be there the whole time
to try to fight back the impulse I feel
to steer for you on every step, and miss step
Because I know you won't forever need me here
You been the freest spirit, since the day we first met.

And if you're reading this and I'm bald
maybe take it easy on me....I'm pretty sensitive about it.

By the time you read this,
I'll have put the work I needed in
to pay whatever school to teach you everything you wanna know

and I promise I'll quit smoking
and I promise I'l never make you feel like less than everything to me

and though your father may have been a failure when he found you
The sparks that you emitted through his heart that night,
with fingers wrapped around his thumb,
erupted seas of roaring flame around his very soul
bolstering a furnace to replace the heart you stole
the foundry drove his will that night
and has done ever since,
even when all he does have
is paper and some pens.