Literary Orphans

Two Poems
by Frankie Concepion

Forget_by_DianaCretu

If the world should end

If the world should
end−
and I, having never been in
love, survived

would my life be considered
a crime?

A Renaissance woman
(in all aspects,
except knowing when appropriate
to lie)

understands that all must be done
for the greater
good

that evil lies in the
self and not
the objects we
desire,

and in that spirit
files down every
post-apocalyptic callous.

Still, you
accuse me of selfishness
when I am trying my best
to be a
lady.

Fear not the fire and brimstone,
the fizzle, nor the bang−
in the end we are saved
by our idols

and I
have none.

 

O Typekey Divider

 

Poster Child

Don’t you think it’s funny
how words collapse in a different con
text, how

thirteen can feel like thirty
when the local bars don’t card and
twenty-three can feel like two
when your parents are getting a divorce

I was never oppressed, I
the poster child of privilege
puking foie gras and truffles
into a porcelain throne to fit

into the clothes my mother
bought me

clothes
that I wore to America, where
the same people who told me
it was no longer
kosher to follow
the Ten Commandments

turned me into a minority
though I have yet to figure out
what that means

and even still,
this pain is nothing compared to
the pain of
starvation

even still,
my pain is nothing when it is
self-inflicted

the poster child of privilege
spitting bile into
a silver spoon.

 

O Typekey Divider

 Frankie Concepcion was born in the Philippines and now lives in Boston, MA. Her poetry has been published in Lucid Rhythms, The Fat City Review, Spectrum Magazine, and others. She is the current poetry editor of Side B Magazine, and an editor at Muni.com.ph.

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O Typekey Divider

–Art by Diana Cretu

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