"Semicolon" by Evie Smith

Photo by Julia Kuzenkov on Pexels

Absence

They found me alone.

Oh my god. Is she dead?

I didn’t hear them.

I heard Jeremiah.

Waking Up

The world is wrapped in gauze.

The hum of machines and whisperings

keeps me from slipping back into the darkness.

My Skin

Her hands are in my hair.

Coaxing it off like she did the bandages.

Oh honey, she said as she saw it,

my dots of scars on my baby-pink skin.

Rigid mounds of skin.

Feelings About Hair

My head feels light without my mane.

My protection.

My golden blonde locks shielding the void behind my eyes.

The Singing Girl

The Singing Girl came by.

Her voice paints the void bright blues and pinks,

as I lay helpless, homeless.

Just me and my void.

The Void

There are sounds for movements in the void.

When someone reaches to lift something,

it’s like I can hear the sound of joints

and muscles extending the arm.

It may just be the void.

Questions From a Musician

The Singing Girl talked today instead of singing.

Her questions aren’t the same as her songs.

The void stays black,

but the pinks and blues are there in spirit.

Barley

What’s your name?

They ask that a lot.

The people,

the Singing Girl.

Barley,

I whisper through the void.

My name is Barley,

they never seem to hear me though.

Evie Smith is 13 years old; she lives in Cumberland, Maine and attends Waynflete School in Portland, Maine. In addition to being a promising writer, Evie loves to snowboard; she is a year ahead of her class in math, and she is a BIG fan of Taylor Swift.

Evie describes her poem as a “long-lost version of myself where “Barley” is a far-fetched part of me and the thoughts she experiences are some I experience too.” Most of the scenes in “Semicolon,” however, are stuff she hasn’t experienced. Two books that inspired her to portray thoughts and emotions she had not personally experienced were Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole and You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow.