The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
From A Coney Island of the Mind, copyright © 1955 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
for seven days
we left him
on the lawn
near a flower
no english
in his spine
just asleep
like jesus
he is a cloud
admit it
Copyright © 2021 by Diana Marie Delgado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 11, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
I got curious about the etymology of girl.
It did not always mean female—
originally girl meant small, ignorant,
lacking heft, intellect. Some philologists
say that girl once connoted
worthlessness, any living creature
considered weak, whether human or animal.
Others wager the word’s source more obscure.
No one knows the first time
a human girl decided to starve herself,
go further toward the vanishing
people want from her.
The penance of fasting, taken up
by those longing to be saints and the word girl
emerge at about the same time and place: Medieval
Europe. Starving yourself is old
hat, it goes back, transcendent.
Along the lines of girl also, call-girl, match-girl, girlie.
Catch-words for the discardable.
Finally, at age 15,
after a year of boundless fasting, I stopped
starving myself. But it took decades
after that to lose the habit
of silence, hunger’s match.
From Dolls (2Leaf Press, 2021) by Claire Millikin. Copyright © 2021 by Claire Millikin. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
A is for antipsychotics, the only advertised long term solution
B for the beta blockers bought to slow the boom boom of a beating heart
C as in chronic: (of an illness) persisting for a longtime or constantly recurring, causing comorbidity, so they recommend cognitive behavioural therapy
D dials the DSM-5 handing out diagnosis after diagnosis, giving label to your distractibility and decreased need for sleep, so they recommend dialectical behavioral therapy where they teach you distress tolerance to dilute your delusions
E is ensure, the vanilla-flavored meal replacement drink for when you cannot eat during medication switches to the extended release formula
F is for your feelings, experienced at an alarming intensity in comparison to the average human, they tell you this is dangerous (they being doctors who don’t know your name if not reading it off of your file, they being doctors who diagnose and prescribe after ten minutes in a room with you) they tell you this can be fatal, which, honestly, sounds kind of fucking fun
G for the gatorade, one bottle in every room, two in the bathroom
H takes you to the hospital, high off hypomania, where you will check yourself in and admit you need the help. Here they will diagnose you with something we used to call, “hysteria”
I is for interpersonal effectiveness, the module in DBT that teaches you how to keep your friends despite your irritable instability
J is for “Just kidding!” after you’ve said too much, too quick
K is when you promise you will not kill yourself, without calling her first
L is the lithium, to stop the lows, to lighten the load
M represents MAD pride, a mass madness movement for mental health service users, and the aligned, advocating that individuals with mental illness should be, could be, proud to be MAD
N is for normal, you need badly to be so, and so you take the pills but all you are is numb and nauseous and still quite neurotic
O is overprescribed! Four years on 250 mg of lithium and four on 250 mg of seroquel, all before you can legally drink
P is for the panic disorder the psychiatrist diagnoses you with. It explains your paranoia (but not your promiscuity) you leave his office with a prescription for propranolol
Q is for the quetiapine you still can’t quit
R is racing thoughts and for the rate of suicide, running at 19% for everyone with this disorder
S is for side effects. You are so stupidly sedated but at least now you sleep off the sexual trauma and suspected schizophrenia
T is still triggered, despite every treatment
U is for unemployed, the long stretches where you are more ill than you are useful
V is for the vacant look in your eyes and the voices in your head
W is for the withdrawal, when you stop taking the wellbutrin
X is for xanax, which they’ll put you on for three months you don’t remember at 16
Y is for yoga, which actually, you practise daily. It helps, yet you still want to die
Z is for zyprexa, the drug you finally refuse to take
Copyright © 2025 by Anahita Monfared. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 30, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.