Featured Poet - Marta Zabo

APOLOGY

If the trees outside your bedroom are too low

I apologize

I must have cut them too often

too much, too even

we will have to gain perspective again

through the branches or 

through the wire

ITCHY

One more day

and the thread you left on the windowsill

will have grown too much.

It will take flight

to a land where castles are made

from stardust and cupcake sprinkles

not just for the ruling class

not far away

just like a cat seeing a tiger in his shadow

just like we used to be 

before our skin itched

TREES



To all the trees inside me:

stop it 

though an expert or two would say

it doesn’t work that way

you have to do this

or that

but that’s exactly what makes things

treelike

again

RECIPE

The recipe is very simple, you

take a gummy bear and you

don’t eat it

SOUP

Imagine we’re all made of soup

out there in the tenements

where being solid is

bad

Imagine less is more

and yet

even here

I’m the tomato kind

with grilled gouda on top

and in my world

this is also very

bad



TROUBLESOME, FEARSOME

Can we have some

gentle beats to study to

gander treats to smell and chew

To fly towards a time when

thinking wasn’t as easy

blinking wasn’t as greasy

and fear was reserved for

imminent danger



ABOUT THE POEMS: "These words are a companion to living with OCD and EDs, and are meant to explore my struggles as much as to let others know they are not alone in feeling these. They’re also an exercise of playfulness and awe—sometimes a personal struggle becomes the best opportunity to approach life with curiosity and creativity."