Skipping Stone, by Sariah Starr

Instead of tears the words come spilling 

out of me, and I’ve grown weary from 

trying to divert the flow of them. 

I’ve grown weary from the thoughts

that fester when I obsess about       

interpretation from the outside. 

Part of the word shedding is 

letting them fall how they want to fall. 

I want the words to trust that I will let them 

travel where and how they want to. 

I love that they are like chameleons.

Taking on the surrounding of my experiences 

and producing a custom palette.

The need to describe them is a sun that is 

setting on the winter solstice.

The nights will grow longer now.

I will write and let the words be

who they are now.

Because each poem is for me, but also

for the one who is looking to give

their own feelings a voice.

The poem belongs to the one who can

read it and know it is not an instrument for

decrypting what’s in my inside.

It belongs to the one who lets it drip

from the top of their heads and

spread out like a favorite blanket,

warm and familiar.

Sometimes the words are sharp and hot

and charged with unfiltered emotions.

Sometimes they are smooth 

like the stones on the riverbed,

and I grow to understand the 

allure of skipping them 

to see how far they will travel. 

It is in the flick of the wrist. 

It is in the way my tongue sits

between a chapped lip 

and my teeth.

When one eye is squinted I 

envision the stone making its 

way to her shore;

sparkling in the light of 

my real desire;

To be seen.