Poems by Amanda Conover

“a cost both higher and lower than you’d think”
             By Amanda Conover

I’ll start off by saying I’m vegan.
you don’t have to keep reading
if you don't want to. sometimes I ask
my friends why they won’t eat
dogs if they eat pigs and cows.
my sister thinks every species
prefers to protect its own species
over others. I think we can do that
while not harming other species. I like
to tell people I eat the same foods now
that I did when I bought dead bodies
and someone else’s breast milk.
I like to tell people it’s easy even
though it wasn’t at first. it is now,
so that’s what really matters. I think
about them often, the nonhumans
in cages, the bloody floors and broken
bones and forced impregnations.
I listen when people talk about why
they could never be vegan, about how
it's restrictive and hard and expensive
to buy beans and ask for no cheese.
I listen and all I can think about
is the animals and what it means
to be them, of begging for your life
as those around you are slaughtered.
how they have no one and how I’m forced
to feel fortunate that I’m a human who
doesn’t have to endure any of that, who
just has to watch the people I believed in
pay for it to happen as if it means nothing.


“the weight of the world”
             By Amanda Conover

in the mirror, I see a flutter-like burning of trees
and withering of children, their tiny hollow
frames buried quietly. pigs with slashed throats
squealing for one more breath of blood-filled air
and once-healthy reefs bleached almost as white
as the men in penthouses who pay for it to happen.

I see the aftermath of bullets in schools,
neatly written suicide notes in college dorms,
unpaid credit card bills and crumbled food
stamps scattered in a studio that costs twice
the average salary in the area. Discrimination
and hate crimes and phobias and isms.

in the mirror there is an endless number
of rapists roaming free both with and without
evidence to prove their guilt. there’s missing
Indigenous people, bombs dropped on civilians,
forced births and stolen births and births
that cause other births to regret their birth.

I try to break the glass and it breaks me back.
I reach into the shards and try to help despite
the blood from a million cuts fleeing my body.
I hold heavy signs and scream for a sliver
of a chance of change. I write and talk and post
until all I am is a reflection of the things most
people don’t want to see for too long if it means
they won’t be able to look away again.


“government subsidies scare me”
             By Amanda Conover

because they warp the entire
food industry into a neatly bottled
jar of milk containing the classic
red barn, sunset, smiling cow
we’ve all seen walking down
a brightly lit grocery store on a Sunday.

we buy the illusion and become stuck
in a system that allegedly benefits
everyone but really only benefits
the larger agricultural corporations,
the companies who have piles
of coins large enough to own America.

they scare me because the system relies
on funded studies to choose who gets subsidies,
and the meat, dairy, and eggs that supposedly
help humans hurt the environment
while making us sicker and forcing farmers
to be dependent on the government.

and there’s nothing I can do about it all
except beg those around me to hear
what I say and actually change
instead of getting mad, feeling attacked
over the fact that subsidies have control
over our country, over us. I am scared because it seems
I am the only one who is scared.

- Amanda Conover is a queer poet based in Peoria, IL who often engages with themes such as existentialism, spirituality, and social issues. She is the poetry editor for Carolina Muse Literary & Arts Magazine and is a recent MFA alum who works in scholarly publishing. Her poetry has been published in Atlanta Review, the lickety~split, Sad Girl Diaries, and elsewhere. Find her at https://amandaconover.com/

Copyright©2025by Amanda Conover. All Rights Reserved.