Featured Poem: I'm Just

Sometimes, we can walk through life without noticing the people around us. For the most part, this is accidental and can’t be helped, but when it comes to the people being ignored, they just want to be seen. In these moments, we ignore other beings and, in a way, don’t remember that everybody on this planet is connected via the fact that we are human beings. Lezbikus’s poem, I’m Just deals with this in a beautifully poetic way, with word choice that makes the reader think about what it means to be human. I caught up with Lezbikus to ask a few questions about her poem!

Give us a quick summary of I’m Just.

I struggle a lot in life. I'm not normal and do not do normal things, and because of this many people don't see me. They just walk by me as if I'm not human. I was homeless for about four years and I saw the way people treated me and other homeless people. As if we were trash, lesser beings because we did not have the same comforts that they had. I wanted to try and open everyone's eyes to the fact that we are all connected. That we're all human and that we all die no matter what we do, how we live, or who we are.

How did you choose the title for it?

The title kind of just wrote itself.

What was your favourite thing about writing I’m Just?

A lot of times it feels like the words just fall out my head. There is no really feeling behind it while I'm writing and most of the time I don't even know what I'm writing until it's done.

Do you have any writing rituals that you follow when writing poems?

Rituals? No. I'm a bottler. I bottle everything up and sometimes it comes out in writing, other times self-harm.

What do you look for when reading works by other site members?

When reading other poetry, I look for emotions. It's easy to write something when you are feeling some kind of way. It's a whole other ball game when your readers can feel that emotion too.

Is there anything you would like to say to anybody who read your poems?

To those few who do, I'd like to say judging a person is easy. It's easy to hate and fear people who we think are different from us. But I would like to challenge you to not see what makes them so easy for you to judge and just see them as a person. Try and be kind to everyone. In high school I was bullied a lot by this one kid. He was on the football team and a verbal abuser. A few years after we graduated, he killed himself. As it turns out, his dad was a drunk and beat him almost every day. I think back to him a lot and wonder, if I was ever nice to him and looked past the hateful things he said to and about me, could I have helped him? Could I have been the one to change his life for the better? We can only be the good in the world as long as we don't let the bad things reflect back.

Finally, do you have any other poems that you think people would enjoy?

I have a lot of poetry I have not posted and it's simply because I don't think anyone would want to take the time to read it. There's a lot more darkness and hate in them than love, and it's simply because I just don't have love in my life. I think people like to read happy things. No one likes to read about the dark things that linger in the back of our souls.

Special thanks to losing control. and Audrey T for editing!