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BERKELEY'S NEWS • NOVEMBER 18, 2023

Words will know before I do: A poem

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AMANDA TSANG | STAFF

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APRIL 16, 2021

I might be delusional 

To let language choose 

My love for me

It irks me 

When I can’t paint potentials 

Into poetry

Or squeeze them into poignance

And I want to spit up the words

That my teeth ground and 

Tongue swallowed 

And scream 

The acid in my lungs wants to know 

Why I can’t write about “them”

If words won’t accept them 

How will I 

You need to let it go 

You need to extinguish 

What makes you poetic 

Because I have tried 

And failed

And then spun that supernovatic failure 

into raucous, poetic, chaotic, art 

To my utter dismay 

Because as long as you are poetic 

For as long as you leech words 

From the pores of my soul 

There will be no art to give the rest of the world 

And I’d only be filling pages 

With stories that have already been told

And I can’t keep paying homage 

To escaping, parasitic souls

Contact Anusha Subramanian at [email protected]
LAST UPDATED

APRIL 17, 2021


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