Poetry by Roxanne Noor

                ​Tony Webster CC



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Twisted youth

We are in high school, 
and the depressed artistic queer kid
offers me blow in the bathroom. 

I refuse the offering and 
take a swig of rum from his bejeweled flask. 

I apply mascara thickly
and am dressed in all black like a ninja goth. 

I look sad because I am sad. 

*

When I go home I lay in bed and stare at the dilapidated ceiling.

I can hear the paint peeling.  

I listen to the screams of my mother.

I am fifteen and I do not meditate. 

I am fifteen and dysfunctional. 

I am fifteen and do not know what functional looks like. 

I am fifteen and being healthy extends to 
eating apples instead of McDonald's. 

*

I am young so it is okay to still be this fucked up. 

I speak cruel things and I do crueler. 

My friend dies, the others are suicidal, 

and I think this is what getting older means.


* 

Death is approaching on its hind legs. 

A shadow attached to my hip.

The future is not a promise for girls like me. 




Roxanne Noor is a writer and editor living on an island in Thailand after departing from the urban chaos of New York City. She is the founder of Nude Studio, an online literary & visual journal working to expose global up-and-coming artists. Roxanne's writing can be found on Mixed Mag, Nymphs, Uplift Connect, Full Potential, & forthcoming on Sunstroke Magazine. 
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