I remember a photo I saw of a two-hundred-year-old
cherry blossom tree.
I imagine the events it must have borne witness to:
births, deaths, tsunamis, the rise and fall of empires,
but still its branches spread with pink and red blooms.
I wake up some mornings, an elegy for self
on my cracked lips, gazing upon my scars
and wondering why I’m still here.
But to some, I’m still blooming and they don’t see
the fractures I think define me.
Perhaps I still have some life in me.
If a tree can withstand two-hundred years
of storm and sun,
I, too, can live and love a little longer.
free verse poem
The (Not So) Gentle Parts: a Poem
You talk of your soul ossifying –
the soft parts hardening,
but I’m preoccupied with
pulling out the hems of reality,
ripping out the stitching.
I refuse to yield.
To be soft for too many years
means
to decay,
to become moss underfoot
& I refuse to become trampled.
They told me that the way you identify
lace is by its holes,
and I know now,
I never want to be recognized
by what I lack.
Instead,
I hunt for the parts of myself
that used to be consumed by the patriarchy
and men with hunger for eyes.
(The pieces of myself
that were consumed
because I swallowed my teeth
to make myself more digestible.)
But I don’t need a flashlight
or a search party —
I can be discovered quite easily.
I’m not the girl who I thought I was.
I’m the woman who refuses to surrender.
I forget my fight sometimes
(like the candle who neglected her flame),
but I am prepared for war.
I am no longer paraffin wax that pours down smoothly-
only to harden on your lungs.
I’m not the gentle pieces you stepped upon –
the dandelion you crushed & never asked
forgiveness of.
Isabelle Palerma
Monsters or Martyrs: a Poem
Pain is a razorblade skating down your throat.
(Are we monsters or are we martyrs?
Hide me in a closet or tie me to a tree &
you’ll see the true nature of the beast.)
A microphone amplified your voice,
so arenas could hear you shriek in anguish —
but no one heard the cry for help.
You splayed yourself open for dissection,
offered the world opportunity to see you
bare.
You clawed through your own midnight darkness
to provide a spotlight for the blind.
More dirt piled on you – who was digging your grave? – your screams muffled, the silence even louder.
When I wanted to scorch off my thumb prints &
erase my existence from the history books,
when I wanted to burn my diaries & abandon my name,
you were there.
(Are we monsters or are we martyrs?
Some of us are mere mortals,
but you were a savior beyond saving.)
You shouted, but no one could hear you
until it was too late.
If you swallowed that razorblade that waltzed
along your throat,
don’t bother telling me when you taste
the copper of blood.
Hide me in a closet or tie me to a tree.
You will see who I am & what makes a man
a man.
Forgive me.
I don’t know how to save you.
I can’t even save myself.
Isabelle Palerma
The Garden of Eden: a Poem
On January 18, 2015, at Stanford University, Brock Turner, a nineteen-year-old student, sexually assaulted Chanel Miller while she was unconscious. On September 2, 2016, Turner was released after three months for good behavior – only half his original sentence.
The original scene of the crime is now a garden.
If we could landscape the horrors
and build walls of stone (to call them beautiful),
we would.
But remember –
even without these gardens planted,
you can upend our worlds.
There are names we never speak in our households
like giving Satan a title (a crown) –
James, perhaps,
or
Geoffrey, maybe.
The boys with ruddy skin & sharp teeth,
the boys with trust funds and drinking problems.
The girls we worry about are the ones
who think “no” isn’t a reason
or that “stop” isn’t a complete thought.
The ones who break us are the ones who teach us
rejection doesn’t matter —
nothing matters.
Boys aren’t always just boys.
Boys can be feral creatures:
unforgiving with dried blood
underneath their crescent moon nails.
Boys like Nathaniel and Brock and Christopher.
(The boys you thought were beautiful
are the ones who disrobed you
with their lust & savagely attacked your beauty
with no regard for how you crafted your stars
or lingered over your constellations.)
Manipulate me,
but I will always say your name.
I will not be quieted
because like the author warned me,
the girls who swallow their teeth
are the ones who get eaten.
So, I will not get roped into settling for
the garden of Eden and blamed for taking a bite
of the fruit of knowledge.
I will not be silenced.
I will not be vanquished.
I will scream.
Isabelle Palerma
Our voices will be heard.
We will not be silenced.
Lingering Regrets: a Poem
Every syllable, every plosive shatters the remnants of once held promises.
Shards of broken vows pirouette across the rubber of my tongue.
Each word a lacerating cut like a needle,
like the fine lines etched into my palm for an oracle’s prophecy or an artist’s sketch.
My mouth tastes of iron and of rust, and my head is a beehive, swarming with thought.
My name is Regret — don’t you have a few?
As imperfect as you were, do you ever carry the weight of remorse?
Of course you can’t answer.
The ghosts never respond to me.
I’m alone in my grief & in my solitude, I cannot beckon Lazarus to awaken from his slumber.
This is my greatest sin —
for which there is no redemption.
Isabelle Palerma 