Poetry

On Writing & Rejection

Everyday

In 2016, I wrote a children’s book. Yes, it took me a year to write two Microsoft Word pages of rhyming children’s literature. What can I say? Writing is HARD.

Recently, I was encouraged to try to get it published. While I’ve published several industry articles and some poetry, I have never completed a manuscript and shopped it around. This was new territory for me. I painstakingly researched tips for writing query letters, made a color-coded Excel spreadsheet of literary agents who were most likely to consider my book, obsessed over the first draft of my query letter, and, finally, sent my baby out into the great unknown, possibly never to be heard from again. In fact, very probably.

You see, literary agents no longer send rejection letters. The ease of online submission means more people can send just about anything and literary agents end up with thousands of entries they have to dig through looking for something worthy enough to represent. There is simply no time for rejection emails. Instead, they post a time frame on their website and if you don’t hear back within that window, they aren’t interested.

Harsh? I don’t think so. There simply isn’t enough time to write every desperate author a rejection letter. And there could be so many reasons for rejecting a manuscript. Perhaps it sucks. Or it doesn’t have a market. Or it’s been done before. Or that agent already is representing three other young adult fantasy authors. (Note: I am not writing young adult fantasy.) At the end of the day, the agent just might not like it…

All that being said, this week marked the end of the time window for three of the literary agents I submitted to. It’s official. I’ve been rejected. Or rather, my work has been. Part of me thinks this is a great experience to have. Every writer should experience rejection. It’s part of the whole struggling-writer persona, right? I wouldn’t want this to be too easy – it could mess up my street cred.

But part of me is sad. And a bigger part of me wants to know why. Why was I rejected? Is the subject matter too niché? Is rhyming passé? Was the writing bad? Did they read the manuscript or did they stop at my query letter and move on?

The bad news is that I will never know. The good news is that I will never know and I can move on. And keep on trying.

Dear Sister

Poetry

Dear Sister,
This is about a girl who just caught her bus.
She is one of us.
She wants to be everything at once.
But mostly feels like nothing at all.

She wants to be tall.
She wants to be taken seriously,
But is usually taken for granted,
And now is being taken to the corner
of Grant and Avenue D.
She is part of you and me.
Her hair is a mess
And she’s wearing a dress
That hasn’t been washed in a while.
She cracks a small smile.
At the boy in the front
Who just shot a glance her way.
But he’s not looking at her.
Instead he looks at the seat
Next to hers where he meets
the eyes of a girl
Whose dress is clean.
He wasn’t being mean.
But she felt in his eyes
a life’s worth of lies
She’d been telling herself in her dreams.
The lies that crept in her head
When she laid in her bed
Wishing the sun not to rise.
Clenching her eyes.
The lies that said she wasn’t good enough.
Not smart enough. Not pretty enough.
Not tough enough.
Her heart was rough.
The soft tissues that grew
Were now black and blue
From the beatings she gave to herself.
She put her dreams on a shelf.
Since she’d never achieve them
She’d much rather leave them
Far out of reach.
If she only knew
That the lies were not true.
But they tore through her like bleach.
Fading away, a bit everyday,
her marvelous, colorful hue.
This girl is me and you.
Constantly bombarded
And hopelessly guarded
from a world that demands nothing less
Than perfection and grace
Power wrapped in lace
A maiden who’s not in distress.
Because heaven forbid we feel stressed
And wear a dress
with hair that hasn’t been washed in a while.
Heaven forbid that we smile.
If the world only knew
All the things we could do
If left to achieve our own dreams
But the world isn’t as cruel as it seems
If we stand hand in hand,
Change from ask to demand,
We can finally go the extra mile.
We can learn to truly smile.

My dear, dear sister
we all have grown blisters
from where the world has rubbed us
against the grain of our souls.
So let’s make some new goals.
Be messy.
Be graceful.
Be crazy.
Be tasteful.
Be your own kind of strong.
Together, we’ll right the wrong
And tomorrow’s sisters can live the lives we wished for all along.

This poem is carb-free.

Everyday, Poetry

No carbs. No sugar. No bread. No cheese.
Hold the salad dressing, please.
No cake. No fruit. Sugar-free gum,
I can’t eat that, it’s after one.
No thank you, I brought my own,
I only eat what I’ve homegrown.
Want to split dessert with me?
I only drink unsweetened tea.
Jenny, Watchers, Thirty Whole.
Another diet, one more goal.
Stripping out the extra snacks,
Only hundred calorie packs.
Skipping yet another meal,
It doesn’t matter how I feel.
Missing out on lunch with friends,
Dieting that never ends.
Counting inches one by one,
Never happy, never done.
Avoiding aisles at the store,
Pacing ‘cross kitchen the floor.
Always checking on the scale,
Feeling hungry, looking frail.
Breathing out and sucking in.
Barely living, but I’m thin.

Some of you know that I had an eating disorder in college. Others know that I still struggle with an unhealthy relationship with food today. Now you know both. Everyday I have to remind myself that I am not what I eat, what I weigh, or what I wear. I have to choose every day to see myself as Christ sees me: as a “beautifully and wonderfully made” child of God. But the struggle is real, y’all. And that is why my heart aches for my fellow humans who are bound by food, enslaved by society’s warped beauty standards, and battling against poor self image. So many women and men make their appearance the biggest priority in their lives, when in reality, our bodies will inevitably fail us. That’s a fact. I hope this post serves as a reminder that food is not everything, weight is just a number, diets shouldn’t control you, and your life is worth far more than food restrictions. And you are, too.

Doubt.

Poetry

Do.
Do it.
It will, so do it.
It will work, so do it.
It might not work, so maybe do it.
It will not, so don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do.
Don’t.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Poetry

Success isn’t counted up in dollars,
or measured out by your acclaim,
It doesn’t depend on colored collars,
or how many people know your name.

It isn’t marked by job or title,
Whether on a card or plaque,
It’s not position that is vital,
It isn’t based on skill or knack.

Success is knowing you’ve done something,
Tacked it down and signed your name,
It’s never losing faith or doubting,
even when you’ve lost the game.

It’s believing that you’re worth it,
When everybody says you’re not,
It’s trying even when you’ve failed it,
And always giving one last shot.

It’s persevering in times of trouble,
Even though you know you’ll fall,
It’s working hard and doing double,
When you haven’t got the strength at all.

Success isn’t based on fame or glory,
It’s built by living well each day,
It’s being brave enough to live your story,
With all your will, in every way.

I Write A Lot

Poetry

I write a lot of poetry,

That nobody will ever see,

Because a little part of me,

Is afraid they’ll say it sucks.