Typo {poem}

Period
End of statement
Now you’re done – why
isn't it an exclamation
mark for the shock
of the thirteen year old first
time finding affected
panties. The young lady
her woman just discovered
now questioning moods
and pain
and gender.

Or for the relief and delight
of the teenager afraid
that one night
has forever changed her life.

Name it for the terror
of the hopeful mother
another month now
with no children
for her own. A question
mark filled with fear
and the always unanswered
why why not when how who
and ever.

Quotations
One opened – one closed
an eternity lying
in the space between
free to interpretation
filled perhaps with
how to begin
and end
explain to parents
and lover.

A comma, a semicolon
because it is just part of what
you have gone through
and by no means the end
of the line.

A colon for the list of agonies
joys and anxieties.

Name it anything
that allows something
in the space after.

Instead, a period
ending the statement
of women’s use
and life
all final now
and we are
done
Period.

by Alexa Reed

Linger {poem}

The machine by your bed
bleeps to tell me
you are alive.

I would not know
any other way. 

You are not living.

You linger on and on,
neverendingly
in this place.

You were always
a free spirit. Nothing
could ever hold you
down. Until you became
tethered by machines
instead of love.

Your hand rests at your side.
If I held it, would you feel?
If I kissed your lips,
would you ever know?
If only one thing 

can ever reach you again,
let it be that you are still, 

and ever my love.

But this form
lying in your bed,
tubes and machinery
an extension of itself, 

this is not you, 

and it is not living.

It only lingers,
as does my heart,
every beat praying
that this machine
will break down
before I do.

Written by Alexa Reed