Danielle Bennett is a professional left and right-brainer–she’s a freelance artist and works in communications at an education non-profit in Los Angeles. She deeply believes in the power of poetry as a cathartic tool and means of compelling storytelling. Danielle is an east coast native, former high school teacher, and breakfast lover. One day, she hopes to complete a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle without any help.

The older I get

the more I see

nuance over

complexity

My mother is a

bubbling bath of

warm & bitter love

My father is a

chased away absence

I still sniff out

My love is a

a singed laughter

& recovering delight

I am a

wising supernova still attached

to a string of fool’s choices

I cannot edit or

filter my past,

the office,

this country,

all the noise I’d

like to unplug—

none of it a tumor to remove,

but rather

a knot I elbow into

each time I practice

radically accepting

& allowing & letting

go into an easy tide

The older I get

I know all the bother

is not “them.”

I am

exactly how

I am seeing.

-Danielle Bennett