Hello Friends,
Poetry comes from all places, including Instagram. Today’s poem by Sierra DeMulder, from her 2023 collection Ephemera, is what I would call a Found Poem — one that takes existing texts and excerpts, reorders, and collages them into a new whole piece.
Enjoy.
Ællen
Poetry comes from all places, including Instagram. Today’s poem by Sierra DeMulder, from her 2023 collection Ephemera, is what I would call a Found Poem — one that takes existing texts and excerpts, reorders, and collages them into a new whole piece.
Enjoy.
Ællen
I Asked Why Have You Denied Yourself Love
Answers crowdsourced from the author’s Instagram. Italics denote direct quotes.
Absent parent(s)
and the man who made me
mistrust ever man after.
I haven’t earned it yet—
what is love if not a salary?
The sweet treat we get
for being demure.
It feels too selfish,
too vulgar, unladylike
to gorge myself
on the moist cake of it.
I’ve got bad credit,
a pretty sibling, a rank
history of mistakes,
each one more foul
than the last. The timing
was all wrong.
The timing was right
but I was afraid
of losing it.
I am disorganized.
My brain is broken,
and it was stuck on something
I thought was love.
I’ve spit out it before
just to prove that I can.
I believe I am ugly.
and in the end,
it’s just easier this way,
familiar as a callous,
tongued over like
a cracked tooth:
suffering feels cleaner,
because if I start to believe
I actually deserve love,
I’d have to find
unacceptable all
those incapable of
giving it.
■
Answers crowdsourced from the author’s Instagram. Italics denote direct quotes.
Absent parent(s)
and the man who made me
mistrust ever man after.
I haven’t earned it yet—
what is love if not a salary?
The sweet treat we get
for being demure.
It feels too selfish,
too vulgar, unladylike
to gorge myself
on the moist cake of it.
I’ve got bad credit,
a pretty sibling, a rank
history of mistakes,
each one more foul
than the last. The timing
was all wrong.
The timing was right
but I was afraid
of losing it.
I am disorganized.
My brain is broken,
and it was stuck on something
I thought was love.
I’ve spit out it before
just to prove that I can.
I believe I am ugly.
and in the end,
it’s just easier this way,
familiar as a callous,
tongued over like
a cracked tooth:
suffering feels cleaner,
because if I start to believe
I actually deserve love,
I’d have to find
unacceptable all
those incapable of
giving it.
■