Poetry by Valancy Green

     Danielle Henry CC




​Live, Laugh, Love
​
The yearning to be seen
Or not be seen 
To live, laugh, love
And laugh at love
But also live for it
Cry for love
Because we’re all crying inside
And love to live 
And live to laugh
To laugh through ink on paper
And cry on paper in ink
Bleed in ink
So that others
Can see your pain
Do you see my pain?
Do you see me?
Because I can see you
And you are just like me
In pain
In ink
On and on 
On paper





Some Fucking Answer

You scramble through life
                             in search for some answer
                                            some higher meaning to your existence.
               And in your journey 
you discover three truths:



       1. Mediocrity smells like day-old socks. Stanky, but familiar. Wear them for five to seven days, but no more.

       2. Swearing at the toilet paper roll at three in the morning doesn’t make it unravel any faster. Or in the right direction. Trust your     
             instinct. Your muscles will know what to do. 
​
       3. Collect every slip of paper you receive from fortune cookies (except for the broken ones; those are bad luck). When you turn twenty- 
​            eight, draw a random one from the jar you keep them in and read it out loud. This is your fate. Ignore all other advice given to you by                family and friends. They don’t know you like a fortune cookie does.


Although these are truths
                              none of them are answers.
               That’s the truth.
                                               You’ll never find the answer 
                                                            to your question 
                               and that’s okay
    
               because when you’re sniffing your socks from yesterday
or grappling for the toilet paper in the darkness of night

                               you seek the mystic for some meaning
                scrutinizing the words of a white-washed cookie

                                when all you need to do 
                                             is turn to the mundane.
You don’t know the answer
               but you know you.


​


​Valancy Green is a queer Vietnamese American poet and writer hailing from the Minnesota Twin Cities area. Her interest is in expanding the representation of minority perspectives like her own through written words that are both entertaining and introspective to the human psyche and interpersonal relationships. She is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota studying English literature and publishing. In her free time, Valancy volunteers at local youth writing centers. Button Poetry has featured her poems in their past Short Form Contests.