Inscape Magazine
2022 Edition
Poetry
In All Earnest
Samantha Bard
I hope you never know this is about you
For my own sake,
For your sake I hope that you do
Know you don’t know as much as you think you do,
hair-trigger heart-break,
I hope you never know this is about you.
Let yourself breathe, be, star blue
sun-glint on the lake,
For your sake I hope that you do
Try not to get older before you have to,
Sixteen is a terrible ache,
I hope you never know this is about you.
It’s okay to let others live outside of you,
a hard habit to break,
But for your sake I hope that you do.
I regret not always saying I love you, too,
It seems I have my own habits to shake.
I want you to never know this is about you,
But for your sake, I hope that you do.
Sometimes
Neah Finkbone
Sometimes
The ones you love the most
The ones you let in deep
The ones who heard you cry
Are the ones who let you go
And you realize it
The ones who drop you
And the fall is a little harder
The ones who walk away
And emptiness is left in their place
Sometimes
The ones you love the most
The ones you thought would stay
And prove your insecurities wrong
Are the ones you remember when your heart
Feels a pang of past hurt
When your mind wonders in search of love
And their departure says you’re unable
To return
To the arms that used to hold you
Sometimes
These loves bring more damage than the others
The ones you didn’t pay much to
They did nothing
But the ones you thought were worthy
Of your time
Of your dreams
Of your hour-long talks
They leave a hole
A hole that bleeds for awhile
It looks a little bit, blinded, for something to fill
Nothing fits, and the search may be long
Before you realize that only you can fill it
That hole
Sometimes
You must hold onto the one person
Who’s been through it all
The fights
The tears
The joys
All 18 years and before
The holder of the same dreams
Same hurts
Same rejections
From before another eye set itself on me
I’ve never left me
Never spent a night without me
Never left a tearful day without me
Or chased happiness without the company
Of dear old me.
A Sonnet for the Times
Kena Horst
A Sonnet for the Weak of Heart
Kena Horst
Standing
Kamerin Hull
Amidst the chaos is a woman who stands,
storms surround her as if her home is torn by a tornado.
Swishing like rough waves against sands,
Somehow conflict only makes her grow.
Fingers pointed at the devil and the woman,
But heaven knows that she made it through many trials with a smile.
People can easily judge looks but somewhere hidden,
Is just a person who needs love like a child.
Pieces of glass shattered around her,
Broken pieces of brick under her feet.
But somehow she still stands without being bitter,
The words she speaks are still sweet.
S
T
A
N
D
I
N
G
Is the woman whose life is a journey,
And glory can be found in the mercy of her story.
Lioness of Her Grassland
Kamerin Hull
There is a girl who likes to bathe in sunlight,
Her deep brown eyes are revealed to have a golden amber tone.
Her hair, which was once brown, is now fiery red ready to ignite.
The freckles on her face deepen in color, especially on her nose.
She never understood her beauty,
And instead compared herself to women in the media.
Her uniqueness is refreshing like a brew of tea,
And she continues her knowledge of the world through academia.
The bones in her hand are small and fragile,
But her strength is like a lion.
She is small but agile,
and her heart belongs to a holy place like Zion.
As she bathes in the sun,
She is hypnotized by the warmth it brings and loudly it can ring.
Her hair is untamed and undone,
Her heart is full of love like weeds growing in spring.
Like a lioness she is brave,
And it was God she craved because her heart could not be enslaved.
There Went My Bullet
Kamerin Hull
There went my bullet,
Leaving behind only smoke.
Central power divided us,
It ‘tis no joke
There went my bullet,
Sending a jolt through my jaw.
The others around me are in a rage,
‘Cause slavery is the law.
There went my bullet,
Who wins, only time will tell so.
Blood drips down my leg ‘cause I was hit,
Slowly oozing like poison in the laws while racism continues to grow.
There went my last bullet,
The land is dead to the bone.
Many of my brothers have perished,
And the war has changed its tone.
Ten Thousand Leagues
Kahn
My head hurts.
Filled with thoughts and woes
Over what life has brought me so
I don’t know what shot my soul
A real sad story, made of blue...and filled in holes
I find that things bore me. My heart burns.
A heart mourning, what a dreadful yearn.
We fight to dream, but not all find their Earth.
Riding the same street of different beginnings.
Yet all roads lead to Rome. As the sea sits in its grinning.
Ten thousand leagues beneath the deep
Ten thousand winks, and then we sleep.
As the sea is so dreadfully deep
I pray to the Lord for my soul to keep.
Cause today I'm born and no longer weep
Always had the lock, but I found the key.
Ten thousand winks beneath the sea.
Geese on the Missouri
Kena Horst
