Greetings! My name is Keliesia Cross. I am a 24-year-old poet and aspiring author.

I’m from Rockingham North Carolina but I currently reside in Greensboro North Carolina. Poetry is how I express feelings that can’t be expressed by actions alone. I use the hashtag writing to stay sane because I would’ve lost myself by now if it wasn’t for poetry.

“Flowered ??”

They watered me with pain.

Planted me with doubt.

Left me without sunshine.

Hoping I wouldn’t sprout.

Used dirt instead of soil.

So dry and so rough.

Buried me in the bottom of a box,

Thinking my roots wouldn’t grow.

I was just a seed.

All I had was everything they wanted me to know.

So I bathed in the pain,

Watering myself with my own tears.

I couldn’t feel the sunshine,

We were strangers for years.

I wrestled with the dirt,

As it scraped against my skin.

I found my way out of that box.

I flowered within.??