Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
She still cries over the heartbroken pages of a good book,
but a stranger’s cold word will never break her again.
Call her stupid or ugly, and she just walks past the noise—
she knows she is smart, and her worth is already proven.
Her appearance is different, her posture is tall,
wearing whatever she chooses without seeking permission to exist.
Let them talk about her all day; it rolls off like rain—
she owes no one an explanation for the space she takes up.
But dare to speak against her friends, her family, or her home,
and you will find a fortress standing in the breach.
For her grandmother, she would still move heaven and earth,
sacrificing anything to keep her protected, safe, and held.
Her laugh with her friends now rings out completely unguarded.
Her smile at a passing stranger is given to brighten their day,
no longer ducked in fear, no longer hidden in fright.
She is relentless in the pursuit of her dreams,
working every day to claim the career she has always wanted.
And the girl who once flinched at the quiet threat of love
now leans toward its warmth, opening her heart step by gentle step.
She didn't rebuild herself to win the world's applause.
She did it entirely for her—and she deeply, fiercely loves the girl she has become.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
I used to press two plastic hands together,
And stage a perfect love upon the floor.
I watched my grandparents and thought that forever
Was something simple, safe, and guaranteed by law.
I was so little then, so sweet and naive,
Building a kingdom out of make-believe.
I wanted to be Cinderella in the ballroom light,
Spinning with a prince until the clock struck midnight.
I wanted to be Ariel, with children of my own,
Building a happy family beneath the ocean foam.
But storybooks are flat, and fairy tales lie;
The colors fade away as the years go by.
Growing up means watching the illusion break.
Learning love is heavy, a constant, fragile ache.
It isn't always admirable; it isn't always kind.
The gentlemen I dreamed of are impossible to find.
Now the thought of marriage feels like a foreign land,
And holding a child feels too heavy for my hand.
I promise I am not just waiting for the perfect guy.
I promise I am not just building walls up high.
I am just Belle now, left alone with my thoughts,
Finding comfort in the pages and the lessons I was taught.
But even Belle found magic in the castle's quiet spaces;
Even she found love in the most unlikely places.
Yet my fairy tale ending looks different inside my head.
No prince, no gown, no promised vows to be said.
Just a quiet room of books, a life I built by hand,
A solitary kingdom where I am proud to stand.
Maybe the happy ending isn't a shared forever—
But learning to love myself, alone and altogether.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
The report card sits flat upon the wood,
A neat row of letters where a battle once stood.
They see the top, but they missed the climb,
The midnight oil and the stolen time.
"It comes easy to you," the voices say,
Dismissing the hours that bled away,
Dismissing the choice to drop the shield,
To trade the study hall for the open field.
It is not easy. The burden is real.
The silent pressure of the iron wheel.
And when the perfect score is finally won,
The victory fades like a setting sun.
The praise feels hollow, the room feels cold,
For an old ambition already sold.
Because once you master the ground you tread,
The restless mind looks further ahead.
Blue uniforms call from a distant sky,
Where the scales of justice learn to fly.
The title of JAG feels worlds away,
A mountain too high to climb today.
But stars aren’t reached in a single stride;
They are claimed by the stubborn spark inside.
By the one who refuses the easy lane,
And finds a purpose inside the strain.
So let them think it is simple grace.
They only see the finish, not the race.
Every heavy hour, every lonely test,
Is forging the steel inside your chest.
You will clear this peak, you will touch the blue,
And find a new horizon waiting for you.
For the reach never ends, the dream doesn't stop,
The sky is a floor, and not the top.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
The carpet used to be a plastic kingdom,
Where Barbie lived the lives I used to crave.
I hit the age I always dreamed of holding,
Expecting to be grown, and wise, and brave.
But looking in the mirror, nothing shifted.
I see the same kid staring at the glass.
The wisdom that I waited for evaporated,
While heavy, adult breaths begin to pass.
Sixteen is brushing closely down my shoulders.
The slack is gone; the childhood curtain falls
.I miss the days of crayons on the floorboards,
Before the stacks of textbooks built these walls.
I miss when dreams were wild and unattainable,
When being a princess felt so safely far.
Because today, the dream demands my labor,
And pressure guides the course of every star.
I pour my life into a future uniform.
I fight for perfect scores to bridge the gap
.But now I fear the sea of other perfections,
And losing my own map.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
The Sun dances with the Moon,
The Moon sings with the Stars,
The Stars that play with the Sparkle,
The Sparkle that resides in your eyes.
A shade of rich, sun-warmed earth,
Deep as mahogany, soft as honeyed tea,
Holding a quiet, golden light
That shines for no one else to see.
Like sunlight caught in amber glow,
Or oak leaves turned in early fall,
There’s a universe hidden in that brown,
The gentlest magic of it all.
When the light hits them just right,
The shadows soften, warm and clear,
And every galaxy in the sky
Feels closer when those eyes are near.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
There is no middle ground for girls like me,
just a thin, cracking line of who we’re allowed to be.
Too old for swings in the fading park light,
too young to be trusted out late at night.
Too grown for dolls on a bedroom shelf,
too childish to speak for ourselves.
Too pretty?
You’re begging for eyes.
Not pretty enough?
You’re no one’s prize.
Bare face?
You look unwell.
Lipstick on?
You’re cheap as hell.
No boyfriend?
No one cares.
Have one?
They count your stares.
Too loud?
Sit down.
Too quiet?
Don’t drown.
Too soft?
You’ll break apart.
Too strong?
You’re hard of heart.
Every choice wrong.
Every step watched.
Growing up girl
is losing before you’ve fought.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
too many voices for one house,
too many shoes by the door,
too much life to ever be quiet.
Two grandparents hold it all together—
hands worn soft from years of trying,
love stretched thin but never breaking.
They make room where there isn’t any,
they make it work because it has to.
Our mom calls when she can.
Her voice is love and distance at once.
She tells us she misses us,
and we believe her.
Some love stays real
even when it can’t stay close.
Our dad is a name we don’t say.
A shadow we step around.
Some stories don’t need telling
to be understood.
Still, we are fed.
Still, we are watched over.
Still, someone checks if we made it home.
Family isn’t perfect or whole—
it’s who shows up,
who protects the best they can,
and who stays
when staying is hard.
And somehow,
that has been enough
to keep us standing.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
The silent type—that’s what I am.
Not the strong silent, carved of stone and pride,
Not the cool silent, with a smirk to hide,
Not the mystery that people want to trace,
But a quiet born of shrinking from the space.
More like the scared silent, the one who stays
Frozen in the corners of the passing days.
The one who always assumes they are wrong,
Apologizing just for moving along,
Convinced my voice is an error in the air,
A broken note that shouldn't be there.
I am the silent that would rather stake
My own fragile peace for another’s sake.
The silent that would rather be miserable and low,
If it means a lighter path for someone else to go.
Let my own wishes fracture and break,
If it keeps the surface smooth without a shake;
I will swallow the bitter, the heavy, the cold,
So your comfort remains completely untold.
I am the silent that dreads the sudden sound
Of my own name called as the room turns round.
The heavy panic of having to talk in class,
Wishing I were invisible, made of glass.
As the clock ticks down and the papers rustle,
My chest tightens up in a breathless hustle,
Praying the eyes of the room pass me by,
Leaving me trapped in a stifled sigh.
I am the silent that doesn’t make many friends,
Watching from the edges where the laughter ends.
It’s not that I’m cold, or that I don’t care,
I just don’t know how to reach across the air.
So I stay on the fringe of the social light,
Walking home lonely into the night.
And oh, how I hate the glare of the beam,
The sudden exposure, the nightmare dream.
I am the silent that hates doing anything at all
If there is a spotlight waiting to fall.
No stages for me, no central floor,
Just a quiet retreat behind the back door.
A shadow that breathes, a voice kept inside,
Where the loudest storms are the ones we hide.
Just the scared silent, careful and small,
Trying to exist without shaking the wall.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
They ask if I’m split down the middle,
"Is it fifty-fifty?" "Do you like me?"
As if loving is solving a puzzle,
As if picking one side sets me free.
"Oh, you’re just confused," so they whisper,
"You’re just picking a lane for the night."
If I walk with a guy, I’m a fake to the world;
If I walk with a girl, I’m a target in sight.
Too straight for the *****, too gay for the rest,
Shut down from both sides of the fence.
In high school, every hallway's a test,
Where holding a hand takes defense.
You hear the quiet side-eyes in class,
The rumors that echo down the hall,
The laughter that follows when you pass,
The pressure to be nothing at all.
People complain that gay girls "talk too much,"
Like it’s all that we bring to the room—
Ignoring that silence was forced for so long,
Ignoring the weight of the gloom.
We talk because we were forgotten,
We speak so we’re not erased,
We shout because quiet meant hiding away
In a world where we're constantly erased.
I went years keeping every secret locked down,
Walking the halls, letting nothing overflow.
I was madly in love with one of my best friends,
And I suffered, and never let it show.
Sitting beside her in the back of the room,
Wishing I could just tell her the truth,
Hiding a heartbreak inside of the bloom,
Learning how heavy it is to be youth.
Because being a gay girl in high school means learning to flinch,
Getting shut down again and again,
Paying a tax just for having a heart,
Wondering where the defense should begin.
No, I’m not confused by my spirit,
And no, I’m not asking to fight.
I’m just exhausted from pleading my case,
From defending my basic right.
I don't need a permission slip just to exist,
Or a single neat box I must choose.
I just want a voice that is heard without noise,
And a heart with no point left to prove.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Alissa Hembree Poem
I am the light left burning on the porch,
the spare room at the bottom of the hall,
the steady hand that holds a fading torch
when nobody else answers to your call.
You come to me when brighter offers fade,
when crowded rooms grow cold and turn away,
to sit within the quiet I have made
and wait until the breaking of the day.
I listen to the grief you carry in,
I stitch the tears that others left behind,
and let you start your healing from within,
providing every peace you couldn't find.
I clear my calendar to make you room,
I set my own heavy troubles on the shelf,
to pull you out of unexpected gloom,
forgetting how to listen to myself.
I hold your secrets like a fragile glass,
I keep your shadows safe inside my chest,
and sit beside you as the dark hours pass,
content to give you shelter, time, and rest.
And when the sun begins to warm the floor,
and color rushes back into your face,
you gather up your coat and reach the door,
and leave me standing in an empty space.
You step back out into the lively crowd,
to those who get your laughter and your best,
while I am left with silence, cold and loud,
a simple pit stop where you came to rest.
You text me only when the night goes wrong,
or when the people that you prefer are gone,
and expect that I will simply play along,
a background figure you can lean upon.
It is a bitter math I have to learn:
to be the one who saves, but isn't sought,
the one you use until the tables turn,
an afterthought that never gave a thought.
For being useful isn't being dear,
and being available is not a bond.
I hold the mirror up to dry your tear,
but no one looks at what is left beyond.
I drown in quiet while I keep you dry,
I hold the heavy ceiling as it bends,
and wonder, as the busy world goes by,
who saves the person saving all their friends.
And as the door clicks shut, the truth grows clear:
I built a refuge out of my own pain,
yet no one ever thinks to ask me here
if I am drowning in my own dark rain.
Copyright © Alissa Hembree | Year Posted 2026
|