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Ellie Oconnor Poem
Tap Tap Tap.
An arm emerges from the stone,
A hand,
A head.
Legs shaped for moving.
Hands carved for giving.
Tap tap tap.
Shaped with intention, purpose, and skill
The stone carver is a talented man.
Potential radiating from the art
Tap tap tap.
A mind made to choose.
Steady, strong, and somewhat uncomfortable,
The tapping continues on.
But a new sound enters the mix
A whispering of wonders
A breath of bliss.
It whispers of pleasure, freedom, comfort.
Away from the Carver’s clicking.
It promises more than work could ever give
“Here, you can do as you wish.”
Abandoning the carver, the stone rushes away
To freedom and bliss
To live life their way.
Happiness fills the angles of its form,
Light dances over its rough surface.
Every edge hums with delight,
And the wind sings in its ears.
But the unfinished stone stumbles and falls.
Tiny fractures appear, multiply.
Untested and untended, the stone is falling apart.
Why would the Carver make you weak?
CRACK
You can fix this on your own.
CRACK
The Carver will never take you back.
CRACK
You are not worth saving.
CRACK
My legs are broken.
My arms are crooked.
My brain is twisted.
My eyes are shattered.
With trembling hands, I try to veil my fractures in my own dust.
The dust does not hold.
It slips from the cracks,
falls useless at my feet.
I press harder.
The fractures widen.
The whispers are gone.
So is the bliss.
Only silence
and then, faintly,
Tap.
I choke on the word.
It scrapes out of me, broken
Carver…
No demand.
No excuse.
Just a plea through shattered stone.
Tap tap tap.
He accepted me.
With patent kindness the Stonecarver chips away my shattered stone.
He revealed flesh.
Tap tap tap
Blood flows through me like fire!
I am undone and remade.
I inhale.
Copyright © Ellie OConnor | Year Posted 2026
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Ellie Oconnor Poem
I’ve always loved the color pink.
It is the color of ballerinas, barbie dolls, butterfly clips,
And other silly things like those.
Pink is cute
Pink is frilly
Pink is girly
Who would love this fragile color?
Certainly not a strong girl like myself.
Why don’t I like a strong color,
A mighty color,
A fearless color?
Why would I love the color of weak?
The color of soft?
The color of meek?
I do still love pink.
Pink clothes,
A pink rose,
Even a pink nose.
It lurks on the covers of my notebooks,
On my hairbrush,
Even my mouthwash is pink.
Although bolder colors call, I still always chose pink.
Why?
Because kindness is hard.
And because meekness takes strength.
Because living life in love is a choice.
Pink is the courage to be kind.
I've always loved the color pink.
Copyright © Ellie OConnor | Year Posted 2026
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Ellie Oconnor Poem
sleep
not
wakefulness
It is time for
rest
not
work
now i must
“hide in bed”
I was told
to be productive
I want
to sleep
not drift
into work
I am ready to collapse
because now
I am very tired
it is not true that
I want to be awake
But when night falls, it is reversed
Copyright © Ellie OConnor | Year Posted 2026
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Ellie Oconnor Poem
BOOM
IDEA
EXITEMENT
NOVELTY
My brain wants to create.
A new thought! How exciting!
I am consumed by it, addicted to it.
I think of nothing else
My thoughts are bound,
My ideas are developing.
They spiral into ever more elaborate complexity
I am condemned to perpetual wakefulness
I forsake the tender embrace of night’s repose and let my artistry bloom
From the snarled labyrinth of my thoughts emerges a single unwound strand
All culminating in an unimpeachable, quintessential, paramount, flawless idea
My fingers itch.
It is time to finally begin.
Every free moment is spent locked in my room poking, stabbing, slicing, shredding.
Eating, sleeping, and cleanliness all become secondary to this act of creation.
I drag this idea kicking and screaming out of my head and into reality one pinprick and callus at a time spending all my time and energy not even bothering to refuel myself then…
A tragedy.
Lack of yarn, fabric or thread.
I measured only once.
I estimated something wrong.
I overestimated my ability.
I can’t do anything right.
I wasted all that time and energy.
dehydrated, dirty, and decrepit,
I push aside the mess covering my bed and drop into a dreamless sleep.
Some projects end here.
Some, when faced with adversity, break.
But some persevere.
For some, a solution appears.
I am whipped into the tumultuous maelstrom of creation scrabbling to reach for pins, wire, and scissors concealed in the fibers of my floor of lava.
Out of my beautiful, painful chaos emerges a messy masterpiece.
With crooked seams and yarn the wrong color.
Perfection was never obtainable.
Yet, it is good.
Copyright © Ellie OConnor | Year Posted 2026
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Ellie Oconnor Poem
In the beginning, was the truth
It was whole and it was perfect
Unblemished and solid
But alas!
Now came a snake
And with a mouthful of fruit
Truth was shattered
Scattered to the ends of the earth
For humanity to find
But it was in disguise
For many false truths humanity did discover
And attempt to place in the puzzle
Then once seeing some pieces did not fit
We brought them to the fire
Until they glowed
Until they melted
And with our weak breath
And with our unsteady hands
We tried to make our fractured truth whole again
But we made it rounded where it was to be sharp
And bulging where it was meant to be flat
Confident in our catastrophe we continued on
And on,
And on.
Humankind has mutilated truth.
We have made something once strong, moldable
Something once sharp, dull
Something once pure, tainted
We try to take infinity and squash it into our lowly hands
I don’t want to live my truth!
My truth was smashed and melted into a self-important blob
It is dinghy
it is cloudy
And it is flawed.
We need strong truth
Unshakeable and unbreakable truth
Truth that brings order to the chaos
Truth that cannot stay buried
Truth that points the way home
Copyright © Ellie OConnor | Year Posted 2026
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