Shay Alexi | Diary of a Ghost Girl

Diary of a Ghost Girl

Shay Alexi
ISBN: 978-1-949099-04-1
33 pages

These poems, like all of Shay Alexi's poems, made me want to celebrate myself. To read Shay's work is to be struck by the power of self-love and its ability to illuminate every dark corner of us. I finished this book and moved through the world that much braver, a little more ready to fall in love with every good and beautiful thing I see."

— Clementine Von Radics, author of Mouthful of Forevers

Diary of a Ghost Girl is a work that calls out to those who believe in a higher power — most especially to those of us who believe we are the higher power. It reckons with the uncomfortable and brings with it an undeniable light. Diary… exhumed a grief I thought I'd hidden and gave me the courage to call it by name. Shay Alexi's work is brave and untethered — I am better for having encountered Shay's work.

— Ashlee Haze, nationally touring poet

Shay Alexi writes "my first love has always been myself" & I want to tattoo it on every bathroom mirror I stand in front of for too long. These poems are playful in their gravity & heavy in the way they ask me to keep moving, despite death / erasure / little violences the work takes back & reframes, asking "aren't I an artist / stealing myself from myself." Here, the dead act on the living with purpose. Diary of a Ghost Girl gives the reader the gift of humor alongside tension / confession / the bottom layers of everything, inviting us "to live within the deepest wells of yourself & / learn what you are filled with."

— Emily O'Neill, author of Pelican and a falling knife has no handle

Diary of a Ghost Girl is a sleepover on the moon. and with the moon. peek a boo, the flowers here breathe fire. mid-catastrophe and chill. dispatches from girlhood but also from dreamscapes but also from a radio in some back room of the heart. ghost stories pressed into candle wax, marshmallows roasted over the flame. these poems are playful yet sharp. breathing inventory. bones polished and arranged just so. expansive yet matter of fact. your own name said three times into a mirror.

— Jess Rizkallah, author of the magic my body becomes

Sample poem from Diary of a Ghost Girl:

In Which Our Children's Children Make a Myth of Us on a Playground

nobody has to play Ophelia this time / except for everybody does wear flowers / except for everybody does float / on their backs / in the river / naked / (giggles) / but nobody has to drown / right, nobody has / to drown except / sometimes they want to / except they don't / and isn't that a good story / all by itself the myth is our moms killed the country clubs / the myth is our moms killed / all the men / in polo shirts or / maybe they just choked / on the gravity of expectant collars but / either way our moms resurrected / the khakis and wore them / better / the myth is they were married by the sea / the myth is our moms were two seas but / they took on a whole continent / just to touch / (that's not true) / (yes it is) / (they met over a poem) / (same thing) the myth is mom wrote mom a poem / and in it they were both Sappho / but nobody had to drown / both Leander but they swam / the Black Sea / the shores of Savannah back / into the arms of each other and nobody / nobody drowned / nobody drowned / and everybody wore flowers everybody wears flowers and / nobody plays Ophelia or / everybody wears flowers and / everybody plays Ophelia / except we are all in love / except we are all in love / with each other / everybody plays Ophelia / except we are all / alive