The Poetry Marathon

Please, Mama, I don’t like it

I push the peas around

It doesn’t matter what I like

When I’m in Mama’s house

If you don’t eat it for dinner

It’s breakfast in the morning

If not breakfast, then for lunchtime

And that’s your final warning

If eating peas will make you cry

There’s bad news all around

In Mama’s house, they give you

Something to cry about

Please, Mama, it feels scratchy

I scrape across my neck

It matters not to Mama

It’s her house, last we checked

There’s nothing wrong with cotton

And there’s nothing wrong with tags

Mama asks me if I’d rather

Go to school in rags

If tickles make your body mad

If touches make you shout

Hold it all inside or get

Something to cry about

Please, Mama, I’m alone in here

Please, Mama, stay the night

Stay till all the monsters

Are finally sleeping tight

Don’t talk about your Dad that way

You know your brother loves you

We don’t tell lies, now say goodnight

The way that good girls do

If someone makes you hurt or bleed

But you don’t have the proof

I’d probably not suggest you stay

Under Mama’s roof

Please, Mama makes no difference

Please, Mama doesn’t care

Please, Mama shuts the door

While I am running out of air

Please, Mama doesn’t get it

Please, Mama doesn’t see

Please, Mama says I love you

To the people hurting me

Please, Mama never noticed

Please, Mama turned her back

Give that girl an Emmy

For how well she can act

Please, Mama says she’ll never

Understand why I don’t call

Please, Mama thinks that she was right

Making me so small

Please, Mama is the victim now

Please, Mama is in pain

But till the day I die

Mama will not see me again

I tell my therapist my brother killed himself

She asks if I am angry, I say no

She wants to know what I am

Jealous, I say

My therapist asks me if I am suicidal

I say no, I only want to die every day

She fails to see the difference

I insist that she is wrong

The gap is monumental

If I were a planner, perhaps, or a warrior at heart

My brother was a planner, for all of his flaws

Where I am merely a dreamer, all wants and desires

But I am a bright orange cone on the highway with my eyes closed

A slippery when wet while pouring water in the streets.

My therapist says why fear, if you are not afraid to die

She doesn’t understand it isn’t death I fear

I wonder where the people are

Who said I was too much

Too loud when I had laughed

Too wild when I had loved

Too quick to fall

Too slow to give in

Too childish whenever

I danced with the wind

Too messy when I spent

The last 3 days baking

Too much of a giver

Though they were fine taking

I wonder sometimes

If they ever found porridge

Someone who held all their extra

In storage

If ever they learned

From all their mistakes

If they ever miss real

In their mountain of fake

If not yet, give it time

Don’t worry, they’ll see

Infinite beats

Mediocrity

I’m sorry that you felt the way

You told me that you did

Sorry I’m a terrible mother

I don’t know why you say

You were a miserable kid

Or why you speak so badly of your brother

I always did the best I could

And still you want to blame me

Why are you always so defensive?

We should focus on the good

I love you more than anything

I don’t know why you find me so offensive

If I really did those things

Don’t you think I would remember?

You’re basically calling me a liar

You used to be so pretty

Before you cut your hair like a pretender

And covered with tattoos, you’re destined for the fire

P.S.

Please accept

This apology in earnest

At the very least

I know you know

I truly deserve it

Two doors down on Sundays

You can see a dozen smiles

And in the tavern down the way

A dozen more, or so they say

And right next door, the neighbors

Light up fireworks at night

Listen closely, you can hear

Children laugh and people cheer

Down the street in April

You see cherry blossoms bloom

A whole house covered so it seems

Like something from a summer dream

But does it matter what the view is?

Whether down the street or Rome?

Tell me, is grass greener

If you never leave your home?

Looking back a hundred years

At 2025

It’s crazy to imagine

How it felt to be alive

Walking through these city streets

That used to be so grand

Now tattered picket signs

And ashes cover up the land

The Women’s War they called it

The War of Bleeding Hearts

The War of Fuck Around & Find Out

How a country falls apart

Can you imagine all the people

Screaming Fuck the Supreme Court

Marching through the city streets

Showing their support

Imagine how it felt

To watch that city fall

The first of many battles

The reckoning it caused

I know the streets are empty now

But just imagine, can’t you see?

Thousands lined up arm in arm

Demanding to be free

The Women’s War they called it

The War of Roe v. Wade

The War of Fuck Around & Find Out

What a Goddamn mess you made

The Women’s War they called it

The War of Bitch, You Thought

The War that even in a million years

Won’t be forgot

How pretty perfect

How pink and rosy cheeks

How darling pretty dearie is

When pretty starts to speaks

Hey girl

How pretty lovely

How pretty and how pure

How pretty when you aim to please

You pretty, pretty girl

Hey girl

You pretty painting

You ornament, you jewel

So pretty when you shimmer

Sparkle, never pretty dull

Hey girl

You pretty treasure

You flower, you’re divine

You’d look so very pretty

Perching on this shelf of mine

But what

If I’m not pretty pink

What if I feel blue

If I feel viridian

What am I then to you?

And what if

I’m not hey girl

If I’m dude or in between

Why must I be pretty

In order to be seen

Can I

Not just be dapper?

Can I not just be spry?

Can I not just be something

More than pretty in your eyes?

Can I

Not just be funny?

Can I not just be sharp?

Can I just once be more

Than a pussy with a heart?

Oh America

You wonder, you

The Land of all the Free

(So long as you’re born all of

Straight, cis, white and he)

We pledge allegiance

To the bones

We pledge to all the fallen

We the people pledge

To avenge who you’ve forgotten

For today

We woke up barren

Woke up stripped and beaten backwards

We watched the world we knew before

Be overcome with fractures

You set

A slippery slope in motion

Allow us to strike a match

At this point we can throw

The goddamn country down the hatch

How dare you

Oh my country

Oh my country ‘tis of thee

How dare you take my right to choose

And claim it was for me

The depths

That we have fallen

Have us teetered on the edge

Of civil war, of flames and forks

Of “We will have revenge!”

My dearest love to be

‘Tis with the heaviest of heart

This morn I write to thee

From so many miles apart

If only you came hither

If only you were near

We ought to shed the notion

That this world is insincere

For nary two or three

Or fifteen thousand shooting stars

Gives riches gold enough

To surrender what is ours

If only you were present

If only you came now

If only you thought not of

What the teachings would allow

My shining sun, my glimmer

My piece that makes me whole

My love to last a lifetime

The match to mate my soul

That you would somehow stumble

On my letter, oh the luck!

That I may finally ask you

Yo… You down to fuck?

Hello all 🙂

My name is Hilary Knutson. I am an American from Nashville, Tennessee currently working in Iraq. I’ve been writing poetry for a couple years, but haven’t published anything yet. Planning to put together a poetry book within the next year or so once I get settled back in America.

Whenever I am home, I fairly regularly participate in open mics and poetry slams.