Class Assignment

We are a species afflicted.
Diseased with melancholera,
We race to the nearest shopping mall
For a quick fix and a neon high.

It's Vegas in your hand,
It's sex and wealth and access,
It's watching the world get undressed
And for a second, you feel it all.

A second,
And it's gone.

Back to the shroud of numb.

Written October 2011. Alaina Perez.

Hopelessly Devoted

I heard the song you
loved the most.

I remembered how
you danced to it
in place.

Flipping your wrists and stepping
on toes with a smile
I don't ever see
now.

Written July 2012. Alaina Perez.

Visual Journals

I look to other people to
find my light again.

It is impossible to peer
within and find anything but
nothing.

They remind me what I love
and I remember everything
I've wanted until

caught up in a worry,
I fade.

Tut tut.

Written June 2012. Alaina Perez.

Mid-Dream

As the fire creaked

He looked at me

And told me

He was leaving

and never coming

back.

Written April 2012. Alaina Perez.

After a year of waiting...

Yay!!! The Offbeat, the literary magazine I was published in, finally arrived! It's weirder than I expected to see my name and my poetry in print, in an actual book. But, oh so exciting. I've been reading the work by some of the other contributors, and I'm so proud to be in their company. If anyone wants a copy of this volume it's only $8.50 from MSU Press. Click Aqui

They did change one of the words in my poem "My Dearest" from callous to callousness, which kind of throws off the rhythm of that line, but whatever. I'm just so honored and grateful for the opportunity to see my poetry in print. Now, I can show my grandkids that I was good for something.

Here's some sketch pics from my phone.

I'm Being Published!

The Offbeat literary magazine through the MSU Press is publishing four of my poems!!! My pieces "This is Why," "Saturday," "Stage Fright," and "My Dearest" will be in the 2011 volume coming out in June. Yayyyyy! I will post pics of the volume once I receive it in a month or so =]

https://www.msu.edu/~offbeat/

My dearest ______,

Oh, oh, oh, predictable you,

Did exactly what you wanted to.

Played the part, kept eyes open wide

And vacant, a mind void of all device.

Always shocked at others’ callous,

Made skeptical by your blatant lack of

Normal flaws and normal character,

Now I know that is the safer

Route to travel down with you,

You, mediocre clown, you

Really thought that I of all

Wouldn’t see through the mirrored ball

Of planted lines and too forced scenery?

The glaring false and too green greenery

Of every look and word and move?

Oh, oh, oh predictable you.

Written October 26, 2010. Alaina Perez.