Anti Poem

Abstract photo with hues of red, black, and turquoise

By Cara Morgan

My thoughts don’t have to be beautiful. I am allowed to be ugly, open. The road to forgiveness is an unhealed scar and most of the time it is impossible to think beautiful things about my body.Difficult to harness feeling on paper, hard to hold the pen. I do not have to force myself to find something good in the down times. I do not have to turn every heartache into poetry while it is happening. Or try to perfect tragedy before I have claimed it. I am more than the things that have happened to me. Pain is part, not whole. I can live like a poem: with purpose.

Cara Morgan is a University of Maine graduate with a BA in Critical Writing. Her research appears in the spring 2019 issue of the Queen City Writers online academic journal. Her creative works will appear in the forthcoming collections “Dark Forest” by Flying Ketchup Press, and "When Pens Bloom" by Plants & Poetry Journal. She is a CPTSD and chronic illness sufferer, Poetry Slam champion, home baker, and cat mom.