Beautiful with a Question Mark<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The daisy chain dips gently over your eye<\/p>\n
It looks like a crown<\/p>\n
A badge of honour worn like a halo<\/p>\n
Listen I know your country\u2019s history<\/p>\n
Your arms yielded swords fighting for the stretch of skin over your stomach<\/p>\n
Your legs ache from escaping the wildfire<\/p>\n
Your thighs splashed with blood<\/p>\n
An abandoned battlefield<\/p>\n
The soil restless and upturned<\/p>\n
Stretch marks are trenches where soldiers slept and prayed<\/p>\n
Came from under the covers of your kneecaps to shoot bullets at your shins<\/p>\n
Bruised knees remains of fallen empires<\/p>\n
Razor bumps protesting for peace<\/p>\n
Paper cuts the innocent civilians<\/p>\n
And lemon juice is the bomb<\/p>\n
Fingernails and eyelashes give handouts on street corners<\/p>\n
I guess acne is socialist reform<\/p>\n
Your body is what\u2019s left after the war<\/p>\n
There are blown up governments nestled in your brain<\/p>\n
And your heart is a scrapyard for fighter planes and air-raid shelters<\/p>\n
Please salute your veterans<\/p>\n
But remember their violence wasn\u2019t pretty<\/p>\n
Their bloodshed a romantic novel<\/p>\n
Or a self-insert fanfiction for your flashbacks<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Look I\u2019m just worried about you<\/p>\n
You\u2019re still beautiful<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t really mean the question mark<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nikolina Rokic<\/em><\/strong>, 15<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nikolina Roki’s poem ‘Beautiful with a Question Mark’ is the recipient of a 2020 Newcastle Poetry Competition\u00a0Young People’s Prize. Beautiful with a Question Mark…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[664,604,681,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3152"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3153,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3152\/revisions\/3153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}