ARIES
When the boy with the blue mohawk swallows your heart and opens his wrists, hide the knives, bleach the bathtub, pour out the vodka. Every time.
– “Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair,” by Jeanann Verlee.
TAURUS
I say, I am fat. He says, No, you are beautiful. I wonder why I cannot be both.
– “10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by A Skinny Boy,” by Rachel Wiley.
GEMINI
Some nights, I put on my father’s chalk outline and teach it how to walk. My face is a haunted house my mother screams at out of habit, not fear. Most days I am an alley that no one will enter alone.
– “The Drug Dealer’s Daughter,” by Siaara Freeman.
CANCER
You will find her bobby pins laying innocently on his bathroom sink. Her bobby pins. They look like the wiry legs of spiders, splinters of her undressing in his bed. Do not say anything. Think of stealing them, wearing them home in your hair.
– “Unrequited Love Poem,” by Sierra DeMulder.
LEO
It took my mother eight years to accept me for being gay, for eight years I sat and watched my house burn.
– “Stubborn Inheritance,” by Hieu Minh Nguyen.
VIRGO
And like, maybe? I’m always speaking in questions? Because I’m so used to being cut off.
– “Like Totally Whatever,” by Melissa Lozada-Oliva.
LIBRA
You call me angry, you men who get into bar fights over football. Men who beat your wives when she don’t fry the chicken right. You men who say I talk too loud, who say that my mouth has no business looking like a shotgun.
– “Tempest,” by Crystal Valentine.
SCORPIO
Once, I told you I was afraid of my father, and for a moment I was so human that the audience lost interest.
– “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” by Olivia Gatwood.
SAGITTARIUS
Which is to say that we are too old for all this shit. And by ‘this shit,’ I of course mean living.
– “Summer of 2009,” by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib.
CAPRICORN
If I will never pass, then I must be fiction. Must be a ghost, caught on camera.
– “Transplant,” by Chrysanthemum Tran.
AQUARIUS
I picture myself coming out and my parents heartbreak flooding all of India.
– “Witch Hunt,” by Arati Warrier.
PISCES
This home is your shrine now. Your portrait is painted in Jack Daniel’s stains in the linoleum. The smell of your hair is trapped in billows of fireplace smoke.
– “From My Mother to Her Late Daughter,” by Aaliyah Jihad.
Meet the blogger:
BLYTHE BAIRD is an internationally known spoken word poet. Her viral work has been featured by The Huffington Post, Ashton Kutcher, Write Bloody, Button Poetry, Mic, Bustle, and more. In 2014, Baird was the youngest competitor at the National Poetry Slam. By 2016, Baird was recognized as a top finalist for the Global Young Achiever Award. Her first book GIVE ME A GOD I CAN RELATE TO is a pushcart prize nominee.
