"Untitled" and "Nights Alone in the City" - Jai'anna Gonzales

Jai is a Junior Theatre BFA student focusing on all things theatre management. She is currently at the end of her term as Executive Producer of Hidden Lantern and is involved with student theatre and Emerson Poetry Project.

I've written poetry for as long as can I remember and in high school it turned into a way for me to cope with my depression. Instead of spiraling into a dark place, I would pull out my notebook and write out my feelings in a way that felt most true, and poetry was what came out. Now I'm doing better but I use poetry to sort through complicated feelings and/or as an exercise of gratitude. The first poem, which is currently untitled, is something I wrote in a few minutes in my Ethics class. I was thinking about my feelings about being biracial and the lack of belonging I felt as a result of this identity and needed to write something. The second, called "Nights Alone in The City", resulted from a night that could have easily sent me into a depressive episode. I had tickets to a show and no one wanted to go with me, I was feeling very alone. That night ended up feeling so magical and I wrote this poem to remind myself that even if I feel alone, that doesn't mean I can't be happy with being alone.

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Untitled

What does it mean to sit in a dark room?

In a room that drawls in deeplow and rhythm?

And urges me to move

Where I cannot see

To dance on faith alone

How do I know what lies beyond my own glow and the warm promise of joy?

I don't

And I am afraid to

What if faith is not enough

And my feet do not listen to me

Nights Alone in the City

I stand on the curb and think about

stepping into deep water

and letting the cold soak into my socks

just because I can

But maybe I'd regret that

So instead I get an apple fritter

And I don't bother being clean

I let the stick of fruit claim my fingertip

and lick them clean at the entrance to the T

just because I can

I think about how no one was free

to see this play with me

Or maybe they just didn't want to

I don't know

But I don't dwell

Because I'd regret that

So instead I cry in the theatre seat on my own

I let myself cry at what I watch

and nothing else

just because I can