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: Inquisition

EKArts 2 Comments

What if I were?

Would my peers avoid me

Would my parents dismiss me

Would my God disown me

Would my universe mock me

 

What if I were?

Would I deny it

Would I despise myself

Would my mind denounce my thoughts

Would I curb my yearnings

Would my eyes avert their judging gaze

 

From the sight of her

Her dimples

Her smile

Her laugh

Her special beauty to behold

 

What if I were?

Would I love myself in time

 

Acceptance drives acceptance

If you were to love yourself wholly and completely

If you were to take on your internal quarrels valiantly

If you were to embrace those different from yourself

If you were to take them in with open arms

 

Maybe that love would double

Triple

Quadruple

Until it fills the very room

Crowding out the scrutiny

Expunging the former negativity

 

Love you

Love others

Maybe those around you will learn

To love themselves

 

What if you were you?

 

Evolving Emotions: A Mirror’s Shine

EKArts 2 Comments

Their eyes pierce my skin

They persecute my soul

They interrogate my substance

They diminish my light

 

Who is “they”?

Those that cross my path

The people that touch my life

Cherished loved ones

An external force

God 

The universe itself

Or

Perhaps

Me.

 

I puncture my passions

I persecute my dreams

I interrogate my existence

I mute my shine

 

Reflecting is painful

The mirror shows me as I am

My eyes bend and distort

 

Staring back at me

My greatest fear

My greatest shame

My greatest disappointment

My greatest loathing

My greatest failure

We lock eyes

 

Ugly 

Ignorant

Underserving

Unwilling

Hopeless

 

Perhaps it is time to perceive as the mirror does

Objective

Dispassionate

Void of judgment

An authentic truth

 

The mirrors of our lives

The ebb and flow of familiar strangers

Those crossing our paths

The loved fixtures of our experience

The external force that guides us

This astounding universe surrounding us

Whomever we place our faith in

Ever reflecting

 

There are mirrors

Look, and bear witness

You are not what you tell yourself you are

Or who you feel you must be

You are simply

You

 

Beautiful

Intelligent

Deserving

Willing

Brimming with brilliant potential

 

Seek those who act as your mirror

Who celebrate your strengths when you are blind to them

Who embrace your flaws when you cannot

 

Find those who see you for you

Find those who see your shining light anew

 

Evolving Emotions: The Fog

EKArts 4 Comments

Presences are unannounced in the dark.

Even more so in the fog

A blur of beings rushes by

Without ever crossing my eye

Each step is a careful one

Each breath, hesitant

For I am subject to the misty blindfold

Cloaked 

I embark.

 

In a transition

A surge of events passes me by

What I could do

I can’t.

What I wanted

I can’t have.

I don’t see them 

I didn’t see them

If only by my volition.

 

They move in my view for a moment

So fleeting

They depart 

Without thought

Without recognition

Without realizing

Helpless I am in the fog

For I am a proponent.

 

There is a strange relief

I am concealed

Shrouded in mysterious droplets

They cast a hold on me

Around my every curve 

I am hidden from the world

Away from the mind’s conception and belief.

 

Who I am

Whom I cherish

What I am capable of

What ineptitudes I lock away

The experiences I carry

The soul embedded within

A perfect bubble

A precious dam.

 

A thinning

A receding

A panic

A terror

A grief

A mourning

A spinning.

 

Fog withdraws

Visions clear

Fear resides

In the cavity once hidden

Now in full display

Pleading for a pause.

 

The whole world stares anew