We’re always sorry,

Our body’s architecture
Is Syntactically off.
We end poems on commas,
And find sleeping with masks on
Hard work.

Because sh(hh) is half the syllable of she,
The characters we play
Are somebody else’s poetry.

But text doesn’t have to be the driving force.
Our bodies are as important as our voices –
That’s what my ear told me.

Identity stripped
Of performance,
Mythology,
We are remodeled –
The shadow that completes the window.

Fences don’t protect from everything
And trauma hides behind the beautiful

It’s such a good line. I wish
It lingered more,

—

Ella Baum is currently a junior studying at Vassar college in Poughkeepsie, New York. She is an English major and photographer interested in the expressive potential of sister arts. Ella is a bilingual, dual citizen of America and Sweden and feels indebted to the New York City public school system which spurred her interest in poetry and the potential of language.