Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours usually showcases poems by northern Illinois poets, but this week’s poet is Kellie Joy from Utah.
Joy goes by Phoenix Lilly. She started writing poetry around 12 years old. She said she was an awkward child, and poetry gave her a voice. She writes about social issues as well as her own pain. Her husband lives in Afghanistan and he’s also a poet and humanitarian. She said it’s difficult knowing how his life is, and being apart is something she can’t summarize, but she'll keep the faith that they'll be together soon. Here is why she writes:
“I’m a poet because my life needs something contained on the page so people can take a little something to feel they are not alone." Here’s her poem “My Existence as a Woman.”
Being a woman is chaos.
We have a feminine urge to be cared for.
But fierce feral souls-
We want to be prettier, smarter, stronger than others and we are razor sharp in our attempts to prove ourselves.
We can go to war
And nurture a child.
Women are amazing …
We are always communicating with ourselves from every stage of our lives
And we are always wishing to be the woman we wished to be as a child.
We want to be cared for,
But it’s weakness to expect it.
And what I can say of myself as a woman?
I’m exhausted.
I don’t care anymore about greatness
I know my value.
I know this. There is magic running through my body and my soul is a library of artistic imagery and places that can only be visited with my permission.
These are my words.
But everything can rise as vapor and collapse
If only the world I live in now
Can be the two of us under the same stars,
The ones that remain
Which are hidden while we are apart.
If only you are in my world,
The one I can touch and breathe
Does my existence as a woman
Exist as I truly wish
