Yesika Salgado

cantfindit

Yesika Salgado is a Los Angeles based Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, her culture, her city, and her fat brown body. She has shared her work in venues and campuses throughout the country. Salgado is a two time National Poetry Slam finalist and the recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, Univision, CNN, NPR, TEDx, and many digital platforms. She is an internationally recognized body-positive activist and the writer of the column Suelta for Remezcla. Yesika is the author of the best-sellers Corazón, Tesoro, and Hermosa, published with Not a Cult. Source

Panic

crying / while putting on socks / thinking of skipping 

school / thinking of sleeping all day / panic comes / not

a wave / more earthquake / jammed door way / can’t get

out / can’t even stand / think of calling out of work / guilt

/ broken / you / why are you like this? / why aren’t you

normal? / more crying / bed is not bed / more a temporary

death / alive so exhausting / rather not move / until you’re

less / you / no one talk to me / thinking of missing work /

wash face / get bag / deep breath / sit on couch too long / 

cry more / quiet now / quiet / time to go / will they know?

/ you survived?

Published:

2018

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Spoken Word

Anthology Years:

2025

Themes:

Mental Health

Poems of the Everyday

Literary Devices:

Caesura

a break between words within a metrical foot

Media Res

a literary work that begins in the middle of the action (from the Latin “into the middle of things)

Metaphor

a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic

Paradox

a situation that seems to contradict itself

Polyptoton

The use of multiple words with the same root in different forms.

Rhetorical Question

a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered

Slant Rhyme

A rhyme where the words have similar sounds in their stressed syllables.