Two Poems by Jenny Olson

by Jenny Olson

Jenny Olson wants her words to make people feel and think. From human trafficking to freedom, addiction to recovery, from abuse to redemption. She is a survivor of complex trauma; a widow making her way in a brave new world. She fought her way out of the streets of NYC to a career in corporate America and went to college, eventually earning a doctorate in Business Administration. 

An emerging poet, she writes about hard things that people have done to them. Or do to themselves. Those things people don’t talk about, much less write about. But to those women still stuck and imprisoned in these worlds they need a voice and she intends to be that voice.

Olson has works published in LEO Literary Journal, miniMAG, 100Subtexts, Saturday Sirens Blog, Hamonic Verse Anthology, The Antiquery Magazine, and The Art of Life Magazine.  Her chapbook, The Keeping, was published by 2024 Local Gems Press.

Instagram @jackieowendouglas

the bit in my mouth

bit in my mouth, hard to talk

reins to control me

bit in my mouth, hard to talk

walk here, no there, wait, come back

bit in my mouth, hard to talk

reins to keep me in check

bit in my mouth, hard to talk

say this, no that, shut up girl, don’t say anything

reins to make me stop

why did I settle for this?

bit in my mouth, tore out

reins dropped by my side

bit in my mouth, no fucking more

hello life, i'm here!

Barbed Wire

always trying to cross

over those barbed wire fences

can’t take the easy

the short way

over

gets stuck

bleeds

clothes get tangled in the barbs

as do her feelings

tangled and mangled

why is she kept out

better question

asks herself

why she needs to get over

what’s on the other side?

barbed wire

needs a pair of wire cutters

she knows the dangers

of barbed wire

knows if she gets stuck

against the fence

and winter comes

she could die

from barbed wire

but she doesn’t stop

not today at least

and not tomorrow

trying to get over that fence made,

of barbed wire

wait!

over there! that way!!

concertina wire

something to make her feel

as the pain is much again

of how the men in her life

took it all away