Poetry By Dinah Yohannes

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hatching
 
i haven't felt clean
from the moment i
stepped out of the egg
the peeling began
first in my fingers,
sinewy and wet and
itching like a plastic ..
i felt the peeling go
each morning,
beneath me,
burrowing me,
from the inside
i still feel it now
 
maybe when it stops
i'll be clean
i'll be brand new
(baby chick)
 
but
they keep jamming 
my cocoon shut
i can feel them 
pull as i push
and i push, 
i claw, my way
from a grave
of a skin gone
septic 
 
i couldn't wear it if I wanted to
 




shape-shifter
 
she is a terrified child,
         a roiling  demon,
inside the body of a woman,
with scrapes on her knees,
and a hole
in her 
soul
a freak of nature
who wanted mom to tell her,
'everything is reversible,
you have all the time in the world
to Change,'
and she did
she Changed
and Changed
many times already…
 
haven’t you noticed?
​



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Dinah Yohannes is a writer, poet, and musician, based in Brooklyn and in London, who also performs as girlbeach. She has been published in Club Curran (NYC) and in PlayThey Magazine (U.K.). MOST HATED WOMAN ON EARTH is a collection of poems written between 2024 and 2026. Her first fiction novel will be released in 2027. She wants you to know you can be whoever it is you feel like you are today.