by Stephanie Ambroise today,i am not a poet.the creases in my fingersdo not existto bendto the whim of my heart’s needto expel verbal aesthetics,my hand is at rest,the lines on my knucklesare not river or blood beds,nor are they hieroglyphicmessages from ancestorscarryongiveuptheydon’tseeyoureadusonyouraunt’scheeklivelivelivelivelive ****some days, the world kicks the back of my knee­capsso i can fall … Continue reading blood →

by Stephanie Ambroise for those of you who used my heart as a halfway house… i hope the outside someday sees you as safe. that your lovers do not flee from you when you feel strong enough to leave here. …. because robert frost wouldn’t take my heart to anywhere. too many leaves. too trodden … Continue reading i believe in everyone’s rehabilitation except my own →

by Stephanie Ambroise When the moon audaciously rips itself from your view. When the self- diminishing, the cutting, the inhales out of existence end, you’ll still be here beneath a cloudy winter sky. You’ll attempt to make smoke rings with your breath. Or your father’s angry left eye and fail at both. At the first … Continue reading a lass →

by Stephanie Ambroise Today is my grandmother’s birthday.saw my mother hidden in both of your cheeks,in a photograph soft press printed into my hippocampus: you leaf, delicately stuffed behind plastic filmin a plush pink scrapbook.a fiery brown­red leaf, scripted, dead,unstable, detonatedafter too muchlifetime stoppered. Today is my grandmother’s birthdaywhat do you think of birthdays, grandmother?are … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Grandmother →