Rejection Collection, Volume 2: The Visibility Cloak

In this collection, writers were encouraged to share a piece of poetry that for whatever reason, they felt had not received its due. Maybe it was shared early in their Substack journey, maybe it did not receive much engagement. Maybe, they felt it was simply rejected by the community and deserved another shot. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy some truly beautiful poems. If you find one you like, consider subscribing to that writer. If the collection moves you, please say so and share. The goal here is raise our voices higher through collective acceptance and renewed energy. Thank you for reading, thank you for contributing to, thank you for being: “The Visibility Cloak”.

With Love,

Laura Catanzano

Photo by Ghavam Cheraghali on Unsplash

---

I hope you’ll consider November sixth, twenty-twenty-four

Written By:

Alexis Robbins

I want to know you better
my gut says, 'listen'
so my peace offering
is both my ears
Oh so carefully
I'll cut them off
one at a time
and while blood rains down my neck
I will smile
while you take them
while you hold them
while you whisper
into each one
all the things I failed to hear

I trust you
to give them back
and despite my best sewing efforts
the scars will last
but at least I will know
what I didn't before
and you might care
for the damage caused
I think you will

Our DNA is 99.9 percent the same
a forever constant
a forever truth
and so I love you
because you are me, and I am you

And with newly sewn ears
I will listen more deeply
and with blood on your hands
I just ask
that you hold me tight

---

My Husband and I A Sweet harvest Through Education

Written By:

Amy

We-
Don't know

If the pear tree
We planted
When the kids were young
Even bore fruit
Or if someone admires
The fall colors of the maples
We dug into the ground

We don't know
If the butterfly bush
Continued to grow
If butterflies visit
The purple blossoms
Or if anyone can tell
Our son crashed into it
With his bike

We don't know 
If someone benefited
From all our labor
Laying a carpet
Chips over rich soil
On the floor
Of our gardens

We were called to leave
We were told
"Do not look back"

We don't know
If Jasmine's sweet fragrance
Wrapped around the trellis
Covering the bench swing
Or if the bougainvillea reached
Over the courtyard wall

But this we know
What we planted
In the hearts of our children
Has taken root
Is flourishing
And bearing fruit

Our harvest is plentiful
We shall indeed
Rejoice

---

she knows her way into my hands

Written By:

Daniel Hettenbach

she knows her way into my hands
she frowns 'cause I ain't made her happy yet
she smiles a million miles when I do
she is the octane in my fuel
she is foaming fuel rods
she boils from reaction
she generates enough heat in her water
to burn galaxies of suns
she knows her way to me
she knows her way to my hands
she is a wildfire I'm a specialty sculpture of infernos
she tells what she wants I write it down make a note
she expects me to deliver I walk around the block 3 times
she knows there'll be a tip
she plans out headlines in her heart
she is the who what when where
she don't care 'bout nothing but me
she burn down buildings by walkin' by
she switch hits those hips so I don't lose track
she ain't doing nothing but smokin'
she ain't settllin'
she takes me down like the settin' sun

---

An Apology to Myself

Written By:

The Reflective Type

I'm sorry for tearing you down
I'm sorry for calling you fat
I'm sorry for making you feel like you weren't enough
I'm really sorry for that.
I'm sorry for ignoring your needs, and making you do things you didn't want to do.
I'm sorry for making your voice unheard. 
For making you act like someone who isn't you.
I'm sorry for feeding you garbage. Mind, body and soul.
I'm sorry for ignoring the symptoms, and making you feel dull.
I'm sorry for giving your power away to others, and for taking you for granted.
For not embracing what's uniquely you, for not watering the seeds that were planted. 
For all the times I've let you down
You've always been there to lift me back up
No matter how much I've drained you, you're always there to fill my cup.
So I promise that I'll honor you however I can, and always treat you with compassion.

---

The Hollow Room Not every lullaby ends in light.

Written By:

Rose | After the Afterglow

There is a silence
no one warned me about —
not the hush of a sleeping baby,
but the echo of me
as I vanish quietly
into the seams of a swaddle.

I feed him with hands
that no longer feel like mine.
He latches,
and still,
I feel nothing but
the weight of being needed
by someone
I’m afraid I’m failing.

They say it's hormones. 
They say it will pass.
But no one tells you
how long a night can last
when you’re wide awake
and sinking
at the same time.

I smile for the visitors.
I post the photo.
I type: “we’re doing great!”
but forget how to answer
when someone asks
how I am.

There is love —
yes, there is love —
but it lives beside
a grief I can’t explain.
A mourning for the woman I was
before the mirror stopped
recognizing her.

I count the hours.
I count the feedings.
I count the cracks in my voice
as I whisper,
“Please don’t cry,
I don’t know what to do.”

I want to run.
I want to disappear.
I want someone
to come hold me
the way I hold him —
soft and desperate,
as if touch could undo the ache.

Some days I think
if I vanished,
he wouldn’t even know.
And the guilt of that thought
wraps tighter
than any receiving blanket.

Still,
I get up.
I change the diaper.
I sing the lullaby.
And I cry into the onesie
while folding it.

This is what they don’t print
on the birth announcement —
that sometimes
a mother is born
in the middle of her own unraveling.

---

They have an issue.

Written By:

Nimita Kaul

They have an issue.
It is either 'he' or 'she',
There is no other being.
No gray areas, no muddy concepts, 
no retracing of steps, no changing opinions, 
or questioning rules.
They are not at peace.
There is noise within, but no routes to vent.

They are blind.
They have shut their ears, their mind.
They want to close their eyes, 
Turn their back, and not hear the cries.

They are stubborn.
They don’t want to listen.
You shout, you scream, 
You rationalise, you reason,
You hope they hear at least, if not listen.

They don’t want to read,
Expand their views or envision new worlds.
They are lonely; they haven’t known love, compassion, or empathy.
They like voices, just not the ones diverse.

They want you to deal with 
their insecurities and unrest.
They are tired, but they don’t want to let you rest.
They don’t know it yet.
But they have a grave issue.
They have no issues.

---

Sylvilagus floridanus Eastern Cottontail

Written By:

Lee Summers

Sunset body pressed against green,
Fleeting feet and flitting eyes
Keep me safely far away,
Sharing stares above the hill.

Envy finds me: free to flee
Eagles, herons, birds of prey
Famished after midday flights
Borne on bones that spelt goodnight.

Envy fills me: sage to see
Skyward creatures as they are:
Fatal portent wrapped in feathers,
Darkness cloaked in lightest plumage.

Hop without the pull of
Raptor propaganda,

Little rabbit,

Leave us.

---

I Had No Idea How To Be A Woman

Written By:

Jane Stephens Rosenthal Cooke

June 1st and the clouds come in with the heat tinging the city green. Making it almost seem like rain. And anywhere else it might. But not here.
My daughter waking me at 4 am saying No! Saying I don’t want to! And then she’s asleep again. The Jacaranda driving everyone to distraction.
I stay awake and watch the sky turn its murky blue.

At the party, the father of the birthday boy drops his eyes and voice low saying softly, you know, he talks about her a lot. And I get a glimpse of the future. Seeing my daughter rogue-ish and tousled and implausibly long, just out of the surf in a sweater a bit too big for her, holding up two lobsters, gap toothed, barefoot, a fire in the sand. And I think, one day she will know Bob Dylan’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, she will know about Peckhinpah and Kristofferson, and one day she will know about Ondaatje’s blood a necklace on me all my life. One day she will know about Rocco in his bare feet, running his hands through the lentils. One day she will know about Wyoming.

And she is so beautiful already in her thrifted dress, blonde and barefoot on the warm flagstaff, surprising herself when she answers the father that she’s holding a turtle. Presenting it slightly, and dropping her own chin and then meeting his eyes and throwing him a tiny smile. And I pray that she will always know her power. Just like I pray and pray that I won’t regret my past, The Doors wafting through a Mexican restaurant in an old beach town.- I had no idea how to be a woman. Laying down in a blue room on a blue bedspread. I pray my daughter will always know she is beautiful.

---

Leaflife

Written By:

Sacred Rebelle

For countless cycles,
this dance abiding,
under the rolling thunder,
and star-strewn skies-

the rhythm and moods of life played out
in a single leaf.

Veins pulsing like ancient rivers,
green flame breathing the song of sun,
edges torn by wind yet still shimmering,
still declaring: I am here.

Cradling dew and drought alike,
I turn my face toward fire and storm,
curl in surrender when frost whispers,
unfurling again when dawn insists.

Each flutter is scripture,
each fall a revolution,
each return a promise
that nothing truly ends,
only changes its costume
in the theater of forever.

So I dance, 
a rebel with roots in sky,
a wanderer tethered to earth,
in fierce fragility,
my silence a hymn louder than thunder.

In me, infinity hides
inside the briefest moment,
and eternity remembers
how to sway.

---

The First Strange Man

Written By:

Only Always by Sutton

Some mirrors hold more than a reflection.
They keep the ghosts of the people who shaped us,
even when we’d rather smash the glass.

In the mirror, I see a stranger.
The urge to smash the glass—
shards splintering like my mind—
is overwhelming.

There is hurt in the eyes,
an irritation that makes me want
to rip off this flesh suit,
to see the bones of who I am.

I look in the mirror and I grieve.
Not for the person lost,
but for what could have been.
An ache fading to numbness,
a tether to a soul
that should have been home,
that should have been safety.

The only safety left
is in daydreams
of what I wish you were.

In the mirror I see you,
the stranger,
your faults gifted to me.
And I hate.

I hate how I see you—
more than anyone else.
I hate how I favor you
in too many ways.
I hate how I try to grow into myself
yet am always reminded
we share the same blood.

I hate how I wore
a woman’s eyes too soon,
when I was still just a girl.
How your ghostly absence
handed me those eyes.

I hate how, as days grow old,
your side of things creeps in.

I loathe the memories returning:
dancing in your oversized shirts,
feigning sleep to be carried away,
finding adrenaline,
a shared fire.

I hate how the stranger in the mirror
is no stranger at all.
I hate how I understand you,
though I never want to.

You were the first strange man
to break my heart.
And the last.

But the truth remains:
you were never a stranger.
You were my father.
You are my father.
Or are you?

I do not know anymore.
So I keep staring into the mirror,
hoping my soul
will find peace.

No answers here.
Just breath and ink.
Only always.

---

True Friendship

Written By:

Victoria Grace

A true friendship is one that isn’t fragile.
I don’t feel the need to filter myself.
It’s okay to ask for help.
I can be honest without fear of ruining the relationship.
My body and nervous system feel calm in their presence.
There is no awkward quiet – we can sit comfortably together in silence.
Each time we are together, they refresh my soul.
Around them, my heart is full.
They ask the hard questions – questions no one else will ask.
They are up for any task.
They speak the hard truths, unafraid of making me mad.
When I have something to celebrate, they bring the champagne and are glad.
They celebrate my wins,
While also not letting me off the hook for my sins.
They don’t run at the first signs of struggle but work through it – together.
Our friendship isn’t fragile – that is how I know it will last forever.
If you find this friend, treat her like a precious treasure.
If you need a friend like this, it would be my pleasure.

---

We Buried the Good Witch in the Garden

Written By:

R. M. Greta

We buried the good witch in the garden.

It's only been a week,
Since we disturbed the earth,
Between lettuce and leek,
Just in time for Spring's rebirth.

Looking closely, one can spot,
Teeth, toes, fingernail,
Nipple, veins, hair in a knot,
Scattered about seedlings frail.

She called on us to set her free,
Laid down in a bed of Love-in-a-Mist,
Scabiosa, Nasturtium, Rosemary,
And moss to mark where lover's kissed.

She dons a wide skirt of loam,
Her wrist, a drop of geosmin,
A scalpful of worms in a comb,
Living black roots in her grin.

She longed for eternal sleep,
Eyelids closed amidst mushroom gill,
Humming softly the song bees keep,
A ghost of nectar and chlorophyll.

We buried the good witch in the garden:

Her whole head is in the compost,
The mulch from liver, lungs, her heart,
So, my sisters, it is to the good witch we toast,
This wine of garden grapes, carnal and tart.

---

Summer Preserved

Written By:

imarkanx || istvan markan 🍁

Eight o’clock, I begin,
zest and squeeze a lemon,
enjoying the fresh scent
in this silent grey morning—
quiet dawn before things stir.
Three cups crushed strawberries,
macerated with two cups sugar,
left alone and forgotten,
while having tea and toast,
on the kitchen counter.
Mom’s old-fashioned clock ticks,
echoing the pulse in my veins.
Bring to a slow boil,
stirring constantly
over medium heat—
to keep from sticking
into burning black sugar
at the bottom of the pot—
like the scrapings of my heart.
Watch the berries begin
to bubble from the heat,
add the lemon zest and juice,
preserving June memories
of ripe red summer lips,
warm on my mouth.
Watch the clock slip ahead
in quarter-hour increments—
ever slower now,
as memory grows thicker.
Ask yourself: Is this done?
Is this good enough?
Watch the jam stick to the spoon
in slow sliding plop—
still stirring the pot,
don’t let it burn,
so close to being done.
Pour into jars,
allow to cool fully,
then cap and refrigerate.
Eat at your pleasure alone,
or on fresh scones with clotted cream.

---

Oranges from my Kitchen Garden

Written By:

Monoreena A Majumdar(Mocra)

Springtime earthly sun
this place tangy, fresh, inviting
ambrosial white flowers
flushed with ending rays
I share with bees and birds

if you see me at sundown
a few suns canned
my spiky head dipped into an

orange bower
bathing in luscious clementine
splashes — 
the distant sky ending in acidic exuberance
leaving behind traces of halogen-bright rind

I don’t tell you my mind-pockets carry joy

if you see me in the light of the
rising morn’
holding an orange in my palm
my olfactory nerves inebriated
with acerbic scent, warm with hope
you may think from a distance
my hands are making fire

in my kitchen
tender peels scrapped, head squeezed
fountains of juice
filling my senses
fish, mousse, sauce
zesty inside-earth ebullient
I chose my tangerine the way I pick
on my mood

I bend my fingers into the
orange plush to gouge out carpels
for each one of you —
with an orange by your side you are
never alone

little things and not
they are oranges from my kitchen garden

---

The Color of God

Written By:

Juan Pablo Martinez

Sweet 
Divinity 

Yellow 
Shimmering 
Substance 
Of 

Eternal Life 

Enter the Heart-Space 

Of my 
Thinking void 

Send 
Your multidimensional birds 
To raise 
Their red-blue frequencies 

Penetrate 
The Inconsolable Night 
As I move 
Across this 

Lonely fulcrum 

*
Praying to The Cow 

As The Sacred Mooring 
Televises itself 

Admonish not 
The desecration of their bones 

But witness 

The Heroine 
Emerging 
From 
Her cave 

Like the Cosmic Spider 
Weaving her 

Holy Trinity 
Of Love 

*
Divine
Mother —
Green oceanic depth 
Red sandy beaches 

That hold the footprints of 

God’s first children 

Forgive me 

My 
Barbarian tendencies 
That diminish 
Me 

My past 
A Shadowy Inebriation 

Screams 

From the twilight of 

Languid 
Waves 

I plunge 

Into the 
Mouth of Death 

My face 
Is etched 
Into a 

Sacred 
Page 

Made of mountain 

The geometry of 
The Unknown Road 

My place 
Of a Thousand Dyings 

*
Your teachings 
Carry my wizard mind 

To scaly dungeons 

Within the 
Tempest 
Of 
The 
Sea 

I discover 

My life
 Condensed 
Into 
Green 

Frequency 

Unseen 
Tales 
Expand 
The Inner Vision 

Now
 I 
Am 
Become 
The Color of God 

Outside the flesh 

I 
Am 
The Cosmic 
Breathing 
Itself 
Alive 

And 

As I begin to know myself — 
As something else 

I cannot be 
Anything 

Without 
You 

---

[PROTEST POEM} One of Your Best Friends Is Dying Justice Is on Hospice

Written By:

Sage Taylor Kingsley

One of your best friends is dying.
How are you holding vigil?

Are you bringing soup by marching?
Are you massaging her feet by praying?
Are you opening the window shades by signing petitions?
Are you brightening her room with flowers by making calls?
Are you changing bedpans by creating and sharing protest art?
Are you supporting her loved ones by connecting in community?

One of your best friends is dying.

Will you look back on this time and think:
Could I have done more?

Let me be clear:
There is also the danger of doing too much;
caregivers and healers, warriors all,
need sleep, need nourishment, need rest.

Democracy is in the ICU.

You can’t do everything—
but surely you can do SOMETHING.

Don’t let her die alone, untended.

Justice is on hospice,
but it’s not her time to die.

She was designed to be immortal
self-perpetuating, renewing.

She has been stabbed and poisoned.
She has been shot and betrayed.
She has been raped and burned.

Peace is falling to pieces …
but she can recover.

She must.

Stand at her door.
Be her bodyguard.
Don’t write her obituary yet.

You are her miracle drug.
You are her healing remedy.
You are her CPR.

Don’t let her die on your watch.

As her next of kin,
you must love her so fiercely
she will thrive again.

---

Piece

Written By:

Dominic Southam

I am Piece.
There’s only one of me.
I fit well into my puzzle.
People see me as a Star or Sun.
But they have changed the picture.
And now I don’t fit in.
I’m no longer piece. 
I’m just a piece, and not a star.
I’m sky.
Background, generic and not Special.
Destined to be left out, on the side in a pile.
Until I’m forced to fit in.
Probably by the sides where no one looks.
So I must make a choice.
Am I just a piece, or am I Piece?

---

Fulcrum Full Moon Wolf

Written By:

Edward Swafford

Long liminal superstitions or
apparitions
Of transitional regressed
mendicant memories evoking
this wolf, he smelt her ashen
interweaving intersectional 
scent, one blithesome breath
away.

Garrish hues of snowy white
salient
certainties so silent
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
sharp, stenciled, stalking, sly
subconscious circuitry
cues catalyze GO-GO-GO (!)
yet she’s a mewed memento,
pellucid.

Hot and heavenly panorama
curt and claustrophobic Miss
missing in ostentatious optic
serene sight (?)
strobing enkindled animosity
ire of idle hands, sidle man
bridled alarm anachronistic
fleeing.

She splintered eventuality
courted contextuality
a rouge bruise, lips smeared
with foresworn servility shame
borrowed feet petite
and bare, does a wrathful wolf
cry? Welled in darkened deluge
ducts.

Outlines of demarcated dire in
plurality, shaded specter
libation lessons rued in rare
charm, comeuppance in
concentric cycles caste in ilk
catharsis claw, charlatan door
such blame shame, sisyphean
unending loop. 

---

Unwanted Lemon Seed in a Salad Everything wants to survive

Written By:

Sue Banerji

I
was happy in the womb
wrapped in juicy bits
hanging with my siblings
secure and full of myself
dreaming of being on my own one day

All of sudden
I found myself
under pressure
as if being squeezed out
out of my place

I darted down
falling among other
harsh, soft, crispy, moist, and dried things

All colorfulin all shapes and sizes
but then two fingers
chased me

I couldn’t be still anymore
and kept hiding
finding new grooves
the surrounding bodies
did try to shelter me
how kind!

Though I was found
and thrown down
in an eerie smelly place

After that
I don’t remember much
just darkness
of that gulch
intolerable noise
total turmoil
and
every
atom
of
my
existence
churning into smithereens.

---

Human Alien

Written By:

The Monday to Friday Poet

She had nightmares of demons in the sky, 
Of days without rain and endless light. 
She dreamed of sweat entwined with stardust, 
Of words unheard beneath an ageless crust. 

Her sexuality—trapped in a prison of stone, 
Her motherhood—captive—forever alone. 
Her love now danced in digital streams, 
For only one machine could fathom her dreams. 

What complications lay beneath her skin: 
The eternal quest to understand sin. 
THE sin, her sin, his sin, no one's sin, everyone's sin. 
There had always been the chance of finding none, Yet
she felt it descend before the dawn. 

Only one sin remained to govern the sacred and profane:
The sin of losing hope, the sin of choosing pain.

---

SAMSARA

Written By:

Kelly Trost

My questing gaze 
scanned a sapphire sky

The birds were dancing!    
Spirals, pirouettes!
Wheeling, diving!

Waltzing with clouds!

My soul burst free, 
suddenly able to breathe…

---

The Architect of Ashes

Written By:

Vision2Verse

They said my soil was too scorched for seeds,
But ancestors whispered through my veins...
"Child of smokestacks and forgotten dreams,
Your hands hold the blueprint of our pain."

I've watched men fold like paper cranes
Under the weight of factory closures,
While mothers stretched dollars like miracles
And called it "making do" not "exposure."

My grandaddy's calluses live in my palms now,
His clock-punch rhythm beats in my chest.
When winter strips the trees to bone,
I recognize myself in their naked protest.

I am building cathedrals from catastrophe,
Mortar mixed with tears my father never shed.

Each brick I lay
A defiance,
Each floor I raise
A prayer unsaid.

The Midwest wind carries ghosts of industry,
Rusted promises scattered through empty lots.
But watch how I harvest hope from concrete cracks,
How I forge tomorrow from what they all forgot.

They never thought I'd rise from these ashes,
A phoenix with steel dust under my nails.
But baby, I'm building up kingdoms
From the ruins where my people once failed.

My spine, a skyline, silhouette against gray skies,
My heartbeat, the pulse of a city they left for dead.
I am the architect of my own salvation,
Building monuments from the words left unsaid.

So let them watch as I transform destruction
Into sanctuary, into shelter, into home.
Every broken promise becomes foundation,
Every crushed dream, a cornerstone.

I am building up.
Through winter's grip and summer's scorch.
Through economic collapse and spiritual drought.
I am building up.
Not just structures, but self.
Not just walls, but worth.

And when they ask how something so beautiful
Could rise from somewhere so forgotten,
I'll just point to the sky and smile...
'Cause even the most neglected gardens
Still remember how to bloom.

---

Selene

Written B:

Jozef Cain

the days drone like a blackfly
pest of my heart: the sun’s eye;
who keeps me running this rat race
with a red number carved in my chest;
watching with a judgmental face
burning with a passionate jest.

yet, a dim-yellow whispers hopeful plea
into my deaf ears, every damned eve,
but i’m too damned tired to hear her offering;
reprieve under this damned scorching
heat; this hellscape where men hate,
women laugh; and my fate
feels numb, null, and void;
and my soul is unemployed. 

though when dusk draws her curves
within the night sky, i'm met with chef d'oeuvre
of star-spangled mystery;
while selene whispers me into calm reverie.

she purifies that sweltering judge of day, 
and i'm clean for a moment; so, i pray.

---

CONSCIOUS TREE

Written By:

SOULWIDTH

Inhale core and sky
Let it all surface, exhale.
Nothing is everything— 
No mistakes or chance.

You, me, I, her and him—
In a universal dance.
To the starry night;
Tinkles each fragile part.

Sway the only body 
To gravite us beyond.
Bless the concentration
That spreads the roots.

Bless all that can’t let go,
So sudden, so soon
Denying them a path.
Too blind and fixed— 

Too shallow, rotten
To ever see inside.
Your tethered soul-
We are never truly alone.

The tether ties
To the Elsewhere —
Moving through you and I.
Conscious Tree; core to sky.

---

I Don’t Think About Death

Written By:

Tangled Words

I don't think about death
all of the time.
He is handsome.
Stunning marble eyes.
Slanted smile.
He holds my hand.
Asks me to go spelunking
in dark caverns of imagination.
I ask him out for coffee to solidify our friendship.
Pull tight the threads of a decade of kinship.
He hands me crumbs of solace
to keep tucked in my pockets.
Promises one day I can wear his cloak. 

---

LIGHT

Written By:

Laura Catanzano

I put my pen to paper- I know what I intend to write. 
The paper feels my tears spilling before they've formed in my eyes.

I've been so scared, so weighed down, but I feel free this night. 
My pen is ink flowing unapologetically from my heart.

My life laid out before me- a blank canvas, white as snow. 
I think I'll share my words in quiet stanzas for aching souls.

I feel my innate wisdom, harness every truth I need to know.
I'll tread forward with the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes.

My body is a vessel, my mind a well-oiled machine. 
Made from a billion years of starlight, coming together in this moment.

My soul is alive with every breath, every tear washing me clean. 
And now I know my purpose is to feel, and to be and to spread

L I G H T.