The Sunstroke Monthly Poetry Compilation is a collection of poetry submitted by readers and staff members. Take a seat, light a candle, grab a cup of tea, and dive into the intricate words of our community.

as the saying goes

By Anastasia Doeing

wolf in sheep's clothing
pretending to be good
to be pure
always trying trying trying
to make up for yourself

stick your fingers in the dirt
come up screaming
scrape the scabs off your skin
let your flesh turn to rot

maybe when you finally decay
you will have made up for being
you
you will have become pure and
good

catastrophe

By Jada Dakota

scylla becomes jealous at the depths of my eyes
like the ocean's darkest storms, the seas deepest tides.
a murder flew by, one crow at a time
and i couldn't strike them down
but i never really try
because in my head i do everything right
but in reality i go one sin at a time:
wrath, then murder, then lying, then pride
and then i went and burned a bible
and laughed when jesus died.
charybdis becomes envious at the depths of my eyes —

god. i always knew i was nothing but a catastrophe.

Repent

By Daphne Harries

Purge me of my greatest sin,
for we are made of soft bones,
strong tissue, and lukewarm blood.
Grasp the roses by the stem;
body torn, ensuring withering
petal’s faded bloom.

Let the thorns prick unharmed skin,
so pure and untainted that
you can taste it’s innocence.
Beads trickle down in a zig-zag form,
until gravity takes hold,
a natural robbery from us.

Feel the heaviness leave mind,
thoughts void of spirit,
blanked and white.
Cleansed with holy water,
tainted red in no denial,
bless our damned souls,
for a lasting while.

My Mind as a Pendulum

By Campbell Martinez

It crawls up my throat
Like smoke
That radiates from my chest every fifteen seconds
Like a hiccup
That climaxes not with a
Bubble of air
But with tears welling and every insecurity and vile message of self hatred
That has ever crossed my mind.

My mind shifts from being filled with stringy cotton,
Torn from gauze bandages filling it only with shallow substance, shifting to the smoke I try and hold in my lungs until my eyes water,
trying to either choke on the smoke or get a high
that will actually turn off the ticking timer in my head
Shifting again to organza, my brain flooded
and overwhelmed with beauty; people, flowers,lines,dazzling lights; too many ideas leaving me
going from one side to the other,
leaving everything duller than the image in my head
the organza distorting the view.

but it doesn’t end at distorting,
Keeping me from the beauty,
it scratches my insides
and pulls my outsides
punishing me for daring to compare
a part of my mind to something beautiful;

Compact for Convenience

By Jam Blenko

poets before me have waxed

great lyrical ballads

of their own insignificance

of their smallness, their mortality

and it troubles them.

in this sense I am different,

I don’t mind the great void,

as above, so below.

my feet hang over the edge

swinging in nostalgic cadence

over the endless ceiling of the sky

and the pitch black of the earth.

rather, I find comfort in knowing that

in all of my flaws,

my addictions, my poor habits,

my mood seesaws (not swings),

my translucent skin,

the mauve under my eyes,

I don’t take up much space after all

Dark Spring

By Willow Kang

Binging chocolates at 2a.m,
basking in the plastic stars of skyscrapers
You’re offline but left behind a tasteless specter,
manifested as a drab mass of anemic glitter
cowering under the floorboards
I waltz to extinct songs, to miscarried songs
Somewhere an owl croons of Spring,
heedless of the rows of cement graves beneath
The Spring winds hurry on with its pestilence
of cherry blossoms, gladly avoiding
the hollowness of these beggar windows

April Poetry Compilation