5/9/25

All Girls Want to be DJs

Poetry
Samantha Stovell






 

If I can't get out of bed in New York,
I pack my Honda Pilot
with stolen crystals in the windshield
and dents from childhood,
driving to places like
Boulder, Ojai, and New Mexico,
where every blue-eyed girl is a DJ,
college educated, callow with luck.

When I arrive the DJ girls shudder when they introduce me
to some guy special, and like an oddity,
I tell him, “I’m not a feminist,”
though I’m only speaking for myself
when I say I’d take on Mike Tyson
to protest God being no girl’s side.
Even when he is special,
not a manic depressive like me,
I never fall in love.
I still end up wiping him off my face.

That's why I can stay awake driving for six days straight,
I know what’s rare in America is
someone to crawl home to.
It’s hectic in the wind,
the rearview mirror twinkling madly,
so I stay alert when disappearing,
have fun when I’m not suffering,
speaking candidly: I am undone.






Samantha Stovell is a poet who transforms personal chaos into linguistic gymnastics, turning intimate struggles into razor-sharp verse. By day, she's staring out windows and composing metaphors about fruit; by night, she's probably doing exactly the same thing—all while pursuing her undergraduate degree as a junior at NYU.