So Much More Than What You See. {Poetry}

By Alise Versella

I have always been so much more than what you see

T.S Eliot wrote the most fertile words out of a wasteland-he was a bank teller

I am so much more than my day job

I have a fear of public speaking

Thanks to the cool kids at the front of the class and their snide remarks

So which words do I have to step on harder in order for you to hear the shatter of their shards?

J.D Salinger wrote great works and was mostly a hermit who never gave interviews-maybe he found people never ask the right questions

So do not think just because I don’t say much that I have nothing of value to say

And do not think that my self-published words are any less worthwhile than yours-Walt Whitman self- published Leaves of Grass and you and I sing the body electric

I am more than this shy girl before you hiding behind a layer of flesh and muscle and tendon and marrow of bone-my onion heart is peeling

Revealing

The blue veins and red bloodstreams

Feel the heat of the words I exhale

After I breathe

Deep

It takes every pound of my five foot frame and two laboring lungs to speak

I won’t apologize for needing the aid of this microphone in order for you to hear me

I may speak softly but my words have a louder meaning

I didn’t write these words so you would like me, I wrote these words for me

And if you relate that’s great but I don’t rely on your approval

It has taken me twenty five years to love what I see and that alone is a bravery

Beauty from pain becomes my poetry

I am so much more than what you see…

Alise Versella is a 25 year old poet from the Jersey Shore. She has self published three volumes of poetry which can be found at her website www.aliseversella.net as well as Barnes and Noble and Amazon. My work has been featured on Rebelle Society and Elephant Journal as well as Women’s Spiritual Poetry. Her mission with her poetry is to be for other readers what other authors were for her—hope. Poetry from the pain. Find her on Facebook.