2013 oakland youth poet laureate—“A POEM FOR EVERYONE I HAVE EVER LOVED WITHOUT MEETING” by Francesca Paris
Francesca Paris
Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, 2013
a poem for everyone i have ever loved without meeting
by Francesca Paris
this is a poem for the girls and boys
who believe they deserve to be lonely:
you are a hospital where every surgery
ends with lonely voices calling out "time
of death" into tired rooms. you are a
barren field littered with landmines. you
are sadness perfectly distilled, leaving
a harsher burn than absinthe;
you have a talent for making every word
that falls from your lips
into a tragedy.
you're carrying storms in your eyes and
cracks in the walls of your fortress, and
someone out there wants nothing more
than to kiss them away.
Bio
Francesca Paris was a finalist for Oakland Youth Poet Laureate in 2013. She won a California Gold Key from the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards and has been featured multiple times on the poetry tag of tumblr.com by the poetry editors. She says, “I write poetry to see the world from more than just my perspective.” She does so with a rare insight and a beautifully concise style. She achieves what poet June Jordan would call “maximum impact with minimum words” – a talent that sets apart some of the nation’s very best poets.
