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: 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.

 

Evolving Emotions: You

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Everything reminds me of you.

 

The faces whirl by in a sea of familiarity

I think I recognize your smile,

your walk,

your presence

I don’t.

 

A laugh echoes down the strange hallway

It settles into my ears swiftly and soundly

But it’s not you.

 

Tears flood my eyes in your absence.

The comfort that held me is no longer.

Is home really home anymore?

Is life what it was before?

No,

But I miss you.

 

I miss you and your

Charming intricacies

Audacious interests

Burning desires

The words you gifted others

The humility woven in your soul

 

Nobody can compare

And content will come

But for now

Everything reminds me of you.

 

This is the first poem I wrote when I arrived at this university. Walking by new people was like getting shot. There were a lot of tears. Everything was so new and so familiar all at once. It did get better in time, though.

Evolving Emotions: Squirrel Staring Contest

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A bushy tail

Flourishing in the bitter wind

Curiously Driven

Hopelessly Eager

 

Frantic paws

Working through

The solid Earth

Toward a humble prize

 

A heart beating rapidly

Blood flooding the body

Lungs accelerating

In the face of something new

 

A charming face

Greets the beady eyes

The new creature crouches

Waiting

 

A stare interlocks them

Each afraid to move

 

Crunch

The leaves sound

The being shifts

 

Away rushes the animal

Up a tree

To refuge

To a world unknown

 

To the person

Crouching among the leaves

Striking disappointment

Slapped across their face

 

Evolving Emotions: Regretful “I”

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I

Question her lack of

Reciprocation. I made a

Declaration about my

Intentions and yet her dull

Reaction leaves me in my

Emotions. Is further

Action necessary? Or should I stir in my

Ambitions and keep

Caution close to the chest? For the

Duration that I remain

Fixation is all I know.

Rumination about what could have been if I had

Conviction in my speech. What could have been of this

Situation if I had told her? My only

Communication was a pitiful

“I…”.