Breaking the Skin: Shelbi Owen

I don’t write poetry. Or at least what I write doesn’t feel like poetry to me. I usually stick to fiction and nonfiction. If I had to give what I’ve written here a label, it would probably be something like dramatic nonfiction in short sentences with a weird structure. I write about the disconnect I’ve felt from the people in my family to the grief of losing someone I didn’t know enough about. This weird inbetween of poetry and nonfiction lets me put words to the feelings I’ve kept bottled up since I learned what that phrase meant. This weird mess I’ve created is my way of working through a childhood that I’ve tried really hard to forget.