Poetry By Kristen Reid

Rob LeBer CC




Killing Off Weed Killers

You are a “corrupted” seed in the cracks 
of halves and fulls of truth,
but from your watering 
of suppressed memories and faltering 
in the grasping of wanting 
to fight the malevolence 
in your shaping,
a bird lingers to peck
your existence to death
to fill its belly for monstrous sustenance. 

Of which form, little seed, 
would you have taken? 
Of a cherry blossom tree or a weed? 

The crafter of your atoms chose the former
(don’t you wish you could have chosen the former?), 
yet “nature’s” beasts twisted your roots
to shoot out black vacuous attributes 
only for a cleansing hand to pluck you and discard you 
as a problem for their vision of gardenly beauty. 

But if you fight to survive as you are, little seed...
well, I like a little determination 
of self-salvation.

For God creates weeds 
as much as he does his pure cherry blossom trees.

​


Kristen Reid lives in East Tennessee and is an honors English and creative writing teacher at Cherokee High School. She spends most of her time writing folk horror and weird western short stories and working on her dark fantasy novels. She has fiction stories published with Broadswords and Blasters, Scare Street Publishing, The Horror Tree, The Sirens Call, and Springer Mountain Press, and she has poetry published with Anti-Heroin Chic and Bullshit Lit. Follow her on Instagram @writerkristenreid and on Twitter @Kris10BelleReid.