Best served hot. — I am of the belief that everyone I meet is a teacher in a momentary meeting you’ve left a piece of yourself with me after a brief interaction we are kindred in a longing to be alone in passing histories ignite genomes inextricably linked to hatred’s past walk away from…

Mental Health Awareness Month and More — Many thanks to the poets who offered their incredible work last month, I’m honored you chose BotB to host your words, and am inspired. Many of the submissions can be read on my Featured Page. National Poetry Month flew by like a bat outta… well, you know. Hell,😏 this year…

An uncertain, beautiful, electric time to be alive and writing poetry. — It’s that time of year again, dear friends. The time when we, poets, scribes, recorders of human experience have the spotlight trained on our notebooks. We are sought for guidance in navigating complex tidal waves of human emotion, and if we’re lucky, we’ll actually get paid. For me life is…

Enjoy a trio of light — The inconvenience of my existence vexes a good, good many. Light footed broken frigid cold malcontented leave me splendid smiles. Once banality a fire this time breathed hot: I. am. still. here. ©️KS Hernandez 2023 All Rights Reserved Make a bold declaration of your existence, in haiku! Compatriots of the…

We were created to be uniquely different. — I almost forgot what it is to appreciate the person I am. The world gets so busy and so consumed with doing “something” that we almost become its next meal. Isn’t that funny? We dodge life’s pitfalls only to be swallowed whole by the trying. I remember now. I remember…

A memoir — the past| clear as a room in the distance sun-cast in rose crepe and sepia low lights. its edges| the sweetest parts| obscured by some phantasmic obstruction nearest my view. time| scales before me like a clean shadow box full of memories crisp in laughter| wilted in tear soaked cheeks|…

A new friend greets me every day on my bottom stair. I rattled off myriad names, for days, attempting to christen this curious Carolina Anole before, Igon, dropped from my lips. They turned their prism-colored gaze on me, almost shy, as if to say “eh, that’ll do” to relieve me…

Honoring my grandmother on the 10th Anniversary of her passing. — Ten years ago today, I lost the one person in this world who was most like me, who understood the shy, quiet, silly, secretly smart girl whose moods ranged from happily silent to loud and opinionated about everything. I believe she lived her life, similarly, so that unbeknownst to her…

A visitation incomplete of tea. — “So this what you wanna be?” “Ms. Vell? That you?” … Uh…where’s my momma? “So this what you wanna be?” I knew what she meant, she meant the same thing that’s been weighing on my heart, heavy like Jesus’ stone that got rolled away. “What do you want me to…