Breath & Shadow
Winter 2013 - Vol. 10, Issue 1
"Oz", "On Kites", and "Lanterns"
written by
Jenna-Nicole Conrad
"OZ"
Kabuki-style reflections,
As only a poet can,
Creased skin like bowing water
Bracken dodging curled sunlight.
Undesired hemispheres--
Self- introspectivity
--Egocentric and wanton
Lives peer through horsehair face masks.
"ON KITES"
Consider me in the manifestation
Of Escaped Kite falls in love with Telephone Lines
And doesn't hesitate to feel the Rottweiler-shock-collar electrocutions
Before the thought:
"I am closer to Heaven then I was before"
"LANTERNS"
A paper lantern of a girl;
Dim halo hazy, stitched thin by needlework.
A precision seamstress of darker dreams--
Freedom is a luxury, not
A privilege.
Jenna-Nichole is a poet and student from Boston, Massachusetts. She is both highfunctioning autistic and Bipolar-NOS. Although she believes a diagnosis is not a definition of character, she embraces them as a part of her wholeness of self, as a source of creative inspiration, and empowerment.