Elizabeth Acevedo reads her poem ‘You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?’

Warning: This piece contains profanity.

Before the coronavirus pandemic took hold, poet Elizabeth Acevedo was often on the road, giving dozens of presentations -- if not more -- that kept her away from home.

From that isolating experience, she wrote a poem that has been finding new readers throughout the pandemic.

"While the touring life sounded really exciting,” she said of that time about three years ago, “it's also incredibly lonely to be by yourself in a different hotel room, night after night after night."

Despite its core theme of loneliness, Acedevo ends “You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?” with a hopeful moment of connection.

Photo by Denzel Golatt

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