Writer’s Spotlight: Giulyana Gamero

Giulyana Gamero is a communication major from Rockford, Illinois. Published in the Young American Poetry Digest twice, featured on Poetically Yours, and having worked alongside Carnegie Hall in their Afro-Futurism workshop, Giulyana enjoys any opportunity to express her passion of self expression which she values closely. Her inspirations are never concrete, but she always gives credit to her 7th grade English class as the start of her journey.

to be imprisoned

to be imprisoned is a collage of

stagnant aspiration.

For I’ve concocted my magnum opus,

I’ve hit my artist peak—

I’ve rung around for a weary eye

to cast its glow against me.

Though I am ever malformed,

forever tireless but still

I writhe in a chamber of impression, and

I am collared to the memory.

To be imprisoned is

how you feel draining those tireless sunspots

wringing out a rain cloud

for a million droughts—

until you can no longer see or dream to be—

simply stagnant, simply fleeting.

I’ve caught a feeling in my chest

and it’s the same brushstroke on the page,

I’ve imprisoned the idea of myself—

caught between pages,

caught between mindspaces

and a bereft culling;

I cull the inhibition,

I cull the rising sunshine,

I cull my nothing

to give it something—

Forever, I’ve been imprisoned, through the sex of Atlas and Sisy-

phus, a merging culmination

Venus hasn’t a clue as to the monster she has made

for sex is all I’ve known between

my lips, and a page, and a very, very bad time.

To praise the blazing sun

in which I’ve encapsulated myself

is a great sin—

but they just keep going.

And I jab,

and I stab,

and I turn,

and I writhe in my own anguish,

a self-perpetuated cognitive suicide,

a non-contingent

quietus:

a re-shelved chrysalis.