Emotion by Jessica Weinfeld (16, Massachusetts)

[Content warning: self-harm]

I love the structured, hardened beat of line.
Uncertain never can affect, infect. 
Unlike this swirl, tornado, vortex—mine 
The part of me that tumbles, incorrect. ​

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I stand outside the wind, clinging to rock.
My hands begin to slip—it pulls me in. 
As if another being. Can't it talk?
No, only hurt and pain and fight and win. 

If thoughts control emotions, why can’t I?
I cannot even think—what’s it to me 
This monster that can never seem to die
—just hiding underneath—will never flee. 

And so I stabbed my hand to stop my thoughts,
Both tied and stretched in complicated knots.

​