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Best Poems Written by Lucy Silverman

Below are the all-time best Lucy Silverman poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Focus on the Texture

It’s a topographical nightmare. 
The terrain rises and slopes over small mountain ranges I wish everyday were freckles. 
The landforms, shifting and rising with every glance in the mirror, they’re rough from years of scrubbing and 
cleansing and 
picking and 
medication more destructive than effective. The landscape is mottled, it’s patchwork-- 
Lakes of oil next to avalanches of dead skin that flake to the floor. I leave a trail behind me. It’s ugly. 

And I knew that from a young age. 
Every “have you ever thought about popping them?” whispered in English class every “what’s on your face?” from my fellow seven-year-olds every “let’s go back to the doctor” softly demanded by my mother every “try another medication she still looks bad” that my grandmother knew I could hear. 
They made sure I understood how repulsive I was. 
They didn’t want me to forget. 

Don’t get a big head. Then we’d have to see even more of you. 
Stop thinking that 
Pretty 
is what you’re designed to be.

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Alice

puddles of sunshine
fall from her eyes in the light
of an endless dawn

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Into the Woods

The day that I lost my mind, I was infinitely miniscule, barely alive in a vacuum of space. I looked around and filled that darkness with demons. It didn't hurt any less, but it wasn't as lonely. 

The day that I wanted to stop, I didn't tell my best friend. I didn't tell my roommate. I didn't tell my dad. I told those demons. Then I dragged myself off the ground and told Miss Emily. 

The next day, the school tried to hospitalize me, and I was angry. Anger has always been my strongest companion. But my best friend told me that she was afraid for me. My roommate gave me a blanket. My dad yelled at the school counselor and had to be physically stopped from driving up to Natchitoches. Miss Emily made me hot chocoloate. 

I built those goddamned demons. I made them out of malice and jealousy and polymer clay and hatred only mostly aimed at myself. They were my creations and they lived in my heart when I formed them and they live there now as everyday I try a little harder to undo what I did to myself. 

Listen to me now. 

You do not want to die. 
You just want to kill something inside you. 
Walk into the woods and find it.

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Pretty Little Hometown Girl

She's a homegrown, homesick, hometown girl. The one I wanted to become. 
Pretty and slim and sought after the teens I read about in slivers of streetlamp on long roadtrip nights. She's not the sharpest spoon in the microwave, but she's the lovliest flower of the bunch, and honey this youth is survival of the prettiest. Chin up. Grin up. Good luck.

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extinction

Welcome to the Anthropocene.
         conglomerations of nations
         united in efforts to ruin the foundations
         of a homestead that’s no longer green.
         made of oceans of salt that have never been clean
         since We had a say in creation. 
         We burn the earth, apocalyptic cremation
         as an act of defiance, perfectly obscene. 

         this is the epoch of learning to die,
         to go extinct, to go alone.
         how do We forgive ourselves for what We have become? 
         this is the cracked facade of humanity that belies
         the sins for which We must atone. 
         how do We forgive ourselves for what We have not become?

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American Gods

Show me something bigger than God. 
Worship at the alter of oppulence and opportunism and 
Pray you meet Heaven at a night club. If you're lucky, she might take you upstairs. 
It will not be what you were taught in Sunday school. 
In this garden of chaos, Heaven is not so pure and Hell is not as hot as home is. 
I think I'll take my chances. 
I've got a date with the Devil, and it ain't gonna end in a kiss. 
Send my love to the American Gods.

Details | Lucy Silverman Poem

Rain on Asphalt

Our city is three restaurants, a roller rink, and a rundown dorm. We fly over red brick roads on truck beds and the squeaky wheels of shopping carts. Don't ask where we got them. Nothing good ever happen in this town, so we happen for ourselves, screaming at the moon and each other and running through the lakes that form when it rains. And our city knows how to rain. She is dying and old but we are dying and young. Well-matched, we are seventeen and waiting on an epiphany. Here is as good a place for one as any. We sit under the cover and wait for the storm.