Author: EKArts

Erin Knape is a University of Michigan senior majoring in psychology and minoring in creative writing. Her greatest passion has always been the arts, whether that be writing, painting, or photography. Capturing Campus, a weekly installment of poetry and photography, aims to capture campus life through artistic expression. Dive into Capturing Campus every Sunday!

Evolving Emotions: Bliss in the Dark

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Setting in the west

Purple and blue hues

Over the plains of grass

A peace fills the air

Dotted with stars

My friend sits in the sky

Pronounced against the black

We are alone together.

My neck cranes

To witness his light

Grazing my face

I lay in the grass

Looking out

Darkness surrounds me

Concealing my existence

Only acknowledged by my friend in the sky

 

A profound comfort washes

Across my skin.

The softness of the breeze

The chill of the night

The peace in this place.

No judgement

No eyes upon my flesh

Probing my mind.

Just me on the Earth

And my friend in the sky

 

How blissful is anonymity

The release of the pressure to conform

The anxiety of inadequacy

The worries for the future

And the loathing of the past.

My friend steadies me

I shine with him

Our bliss in the dark.

 

Evolving Emotions: Centrifuge

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Having depression and anxiety is kind of a

Funny thing. 

 

Those depressed moods

However awful they are

Remain comfortable 

Remain separate from the whirlwind of

Thought and obsessive

Worry

I can’t fall from the floor

 

There is no surprise 

No jarring suddenness 

 

Just peace in the low and dull

It’s a sick cycle

That enraptures 

Makes me yearn for the consistency 

That is ruining my life.

 

You don’t take chances

There’s no point

 

You don’t try things

Why would I?

 

Are you ever going to start living your life?

Do you want the truth?

 

Maybe a day will come

When the anxiety isn’t so grand

And the depression seems just a little 

Unappealing 

 

A day where I step out from the centrifuge

That whirls and spirals

And step into the light

 

With a novelty I never knew 

And a take on life 

I had never held in my hands

With a world of possibilities 

I had yet to realize

 

Evolving Emotions: Yellow

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Yellow has been a rather

Permanent resident in my life

 

Since fourth grade

My single driving force

Aspiration

Ultimate goal

 

Was to be a

Maize and Blue

Student

Supporter

And success

 

That last part

Has proved challenging

And a twinge undesirable

 

The place I called home before any other

Apart from the womb

My childhood bedroom

A zany yellow on the walls

In an artificial cheer

 

It was not always

So cheerful.

 

Something I learned recently

A rather depressing fact

Bananas are disagreeable.

 

For all of the cramps I sustain

Apologies in advance

To my near and distant future

 

My eyes loathe the sun

It’s bright rays

The sweat beading

It’s a sticky sort of hatred

 

It never ceases to amaze

How ironic the world is.

Connections and coincidences

In fascinating alignments

All for the purpose of absurdity

Made sensical

 

Blue has become a recent tenant

 

Paint rollers glided like waves

Creating a sky along the walls

 

Each raindrop and cloud

Brings a comforting cold

And reminder

Of dirt’s occasional aroma

 

I’ve often been blue

Sad beyond belief

Swallowed by a riptide

 

But it’s in those moments

That I’m grateful

For it all

For the joy

For the tears

For the bananas I cannot digest

And for the Zen in my bedroom

That served as a transition

Between color and emotion

 

Evolving Emotions: Familiar Weather

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You are perched

A wooden stool in the kitchen

Creaking beneath your weight

 

Staring out at

The meadow beyond

Past the chipped window frame

The light pours like water

Streaming through

Weathered glass

 

An alluring glow

Inviting eyes to

Dip

and Dive

Across the hills

And into the trenches

 

Its beauty is

Undeniable

But you can’t shake

 

The twinge in your chest

A stab at your tissue

Inside your head

It nags

 

A

Disturbing

Disruption

Amidst the serenity

 

The possibility

 

The hills

Vacillating

The trees

Snapping

The sky

Darkening

The rocks

Clamoring

 

The chirping of birds

Screeching

The rushing of water

Pounding

The movement of clouds

Hastening

The whistling of grass

Shrilling

 

Sending the mind

Into a frenzy of static

Quickening in pace

You feel it.

 

The light fades

 

In its place

Are gloomy clouds

Rapturous storms

An unbearable inundation

 

A pond fills the sink

Entering through the tap

 

Spilling onto the checkered tile

The countertops

And dull appliances

 

The rivers flow

With unending power

 

Through the opened window

The cracks in the walls

The age-worn door

 

Oceans form inside your skull

Waterfalls drain your eyes

 

Taking with it the innocence you held

Leaving hollowness behind

 

Wracked with exhaustion

All dries up

The sun burns flesh

The light lay strangely now

 

You were used to the ponds

The rivers

The oceans

 

Only for them to leave you

A battered husk

On a wooden stool.

 

Evolving Emotions: Blizzard

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My legs are like columns of sheeted glass

They burn with an anger

I have neglected them

Left them to be battered

By a blizzard, hardly forgiving

 

My hands chip like old plaster

Revealing the life underneath

The pain of red

Numbed in the cold

 

My hair discourages logic

Protests order

And wreaks havoc

In front of my eyes

Shielding my face

Enough to obscure

But not enough to warm

 

A cry inside

Screaming for

Something

Anything

To feel again

To know that all will calm

 

The ice sets in

Hardening the bones

Congealing their marrow

Hindering the joints

Straining the throat

 

The blizzard takes hold

Despite my hope

For a light flurry

Following the storm

 

Evolving Emotions: A Churning Prison

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Naked in a world foreign to my body

Tears well up

A refusal

A protest

Amidst the overwhelming reality before me

 

I tremble

Unable to breathe

Afraid to utter a sound

Suppressing all movement

 

For fear that the world will hear me

See me

Acknowledge me

And take me with it

 

In its churning jowls

Pressured production

Cyclical aging

And infinite pain

 

My heart pleads and bargains

Against what quickly approaches

 

I am growing older

By the passing hour

Minute

Second

 

Forced into the assembly line

With a ball and chain at my feet

 

I am scared

Of what mechanical existence lay ahead.