Matthew Nadelson lives in Corona, CA, where he teaches writing at Norco College and leads various writing workshops in the community. He will be leading a 10-week memoir writing workshop through a grant from Memoir Journal at the Corona Public Library every Tuesday evening from 6:30 to 8:30 pm starting in May 2013. Matt's first collection of poetry, American Spirit, was published in August 2011 by Finishing Line Press.---------
Picture Day
The bright eyed girl
smears her face
with Clearasil
and a dab of blood
for color,
and hovering over
the sink, she
razorblades her head.
Outside the bathroom
pop that zit
before the camera
breaks
echoes
through the halls.
She runs her thumb
along the razor
in her pocket.
She would shred
their little fucking
faces to hamburger
if she only had a knife
as sharp and easily
disposed of as their words.
Hayzel
The gorgeous girl who’s bored of being
beautiful, adorns her Cleopatra eyes
with black mascara, not to justify
herself to any Anthony, but to assert
her dominion over her own body.
The sharp, dark features of her face
lay hidden under paint and piercings
and her hair like two ravens taking flight
in opposite directions. Stretched and torn,
her shirt’s so worn, you can see right through her.
She blends in with the darkness around her,
and like the moon at daybreak,
wanes to a sliver. She leaves her lover,
and in a final bid to reinvent
herself, she shaves her head.
Her hair spills like the evening sky
across her neck and marks her for her own.