Writing Beyond

by Julie Bolt


I’m writing beyond the patriarchy
Beyond Capitalism
Beyond Bitcoin
Beyond dystopia
I am writing beyond limitations
I am writing beyond war and crumbling societies
I am writing to survive
I am writing because love is in short supply
I am writing beyond supply and demand
I am writing because love is imperfect and defective
I am writing because words are often empty
I am writing to try and make them full
I am writing because after silence comes expression
I am writing in the cracks and through the layers
I am writing because life rushes toward death
I am writing because time has been wasted
I am writing because I have lived too much
I am writing because I want to live more
I am writing because I am not yet defeated
I am writing because I am angry
I am writing because I am scared
I am writing to find today’s power

I write pasts into future
I write to revolutionize love
I write for animals, water, our planet
I write between the real and the imagined
I write to honor instruments, canvass, the body, the pen
I write as a woman
I write as I age with desire
I write my rage and my passion
For moments beyond this moment
I write to rattle the cage
To float in the ether of me


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Julie Bolt is an associate professor of literature and writing at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. Her poems have appeared in Thieves Jargon, Slow Trains, The Red River Review, Poetic Diversity, Syntax, Shot Glass Journal, New Verse News and Home Planet News, amongst others.