These are submissions from the Voices desk. For the first of its kind, the theme is displaying the feelings of women pertaining to life, love and self-reliance. 

Lost

By Julissa Garcia, [email protected]

Have you ever felt like you never fit in?

Like no matter what you did,

The space you occupied didn’t welcome you.

Have you ever felt lost?

Like no matter what turn you took

It wasn’t the place people wanted you to be in

So you keep wandering

As if they were the deciding factors

Cause I’m still lost

in these trauma-filled thoughts

That continue to feed my depression

My family lost in everything I am doing right

Not realizing what inside I am feeling so wrong

Lost in my own way to be

In a culture I call my own

But I can’t even keep that part of me

because there always seems to be someone who feels justified to take it away from me

Laughter in the cursed American accent that appears each time I try to roll my r’s

How can she be Latina, if she’s not fluent in Spanish?

Lost – Perdida

By maybe they’re lost

Lost in the assumption that in order to be a member of my culture, I have to be fluent in a language built on genocide and discrimination of indigenous people???

So maybe I’m not lost

They are

Always trying to find a place where I fit

Lost in society’s ideals of always putting people in certain places

When reality is,

I’m someone that will never fit

Dead end

Perpetual

By Kelsey Steinbach, [email protected]

I’ve been plucking petals for 7 years-

“he loves me.

he loves me not.”

but we’ve both slipped a few remaining pieces of our hearts

into the pockets of others by now.

the leftover petals float in a bubble bath

or blanket an unfamiliar bed,

making me forget,

if only for a moment,

that i loved you.

sometimes i wish i could write music

because piano keys

and guitar strings

tend to send a better message

than my midnight similes,

comparing you

to the waves

and the sand

and the seagulls.

because i could change the melody,

build a bridge,

adjust the tempo,

but my poetry

always ends the same.

Karma

By Kelsey Steinbach, [email protected]

i don’t leave my apartment with an umbrella

unless I’m positive it’ll rain,

yet i put on makeup hoping

i’d run into you today.

maybe

if the universe orchestrated

some divine intervention

between the two of us

you’d finally see me.

not just like my selfie

on Instagram,

but really

see me.

see me like i see your perfect fuckn smile

when i close my eyes,

see me like i see the moon.

you pull me in

and push me back out

like ocean waves.

an inhale and exhale

constantly giving and taking

and never letting up.

i used to think

being nothing

was harder than being something

because i woke up every morning

to a list of what if’s.

a daily game of spin the bottle

i swore i would quit,

but i was wrong.

sometimes

being a girl means not saying

what you wanna say.

terrified of coming off

too summer

or too winter,

planting seeds

in the fall and spring.

but you have shown me

the beauty of what blooms

is invisible

much longer

than its seen.

who knows what will grow,

if anything at all,

with possibilities

as infinite and unpredictable

as the rain.