Celebration of Words
6-8 Literary Arts Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Spring 2016
6-8 Literary Arts
Celebration of Words Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, A Creative and Performing Arts Magnet
Mara Cregan, Department Chair Kath Donnelly, Adjunct Sarah Shotland, Adjunct
GRADE 8
Old Records
Sharp Stars
My Mother found a box of old record albums, behind scrapbooks and deflated soccer balls. She told me to listen to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, but I like the way Billie Holiday’s voice rings through the living room. It smothers the flower-wallpapered walls of the kitchen and seeps through the dull bedroom carpets imprinted with furniture that never seems to move. Nothing does, until the turn arm presses its tongue to the record, and the tune flows out, like rushing water it absorbs me. Sometimes, while a lay alone on my bed, I’ll close my eyes, I’ll breathe with Billie, let her in, swallow her words and spit them out almost whole. Sometimes from the hardwood floors of my London house, I’ll sing with her and let her inhale my rhyme, let her catch my words on her tongue and throw them back almost different, almost better. Her words are hollow, but the feelings push themselves at you, the feelings that break through your layer of armor are real, are the most tangible things I know.
Inspired by the Sculpture To Die Upon A Kiss by Fred Wilson
Maddie Figas
Laura Kelly
Instead of paying winter any mind, I ran my fingerprints across the diamonds. Sharp stars polished emerald tears, sprawled in the air, break and billow into bloom. The jewels grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night. Blazing and streaming in rich satin wrinkles. Brushed to a cold, silver shine, the rough gray with sparks shining in its cracks. Ravaged in shards and dust and overrun. Colors extinguish’d with a crash and all was black.
Don’t Wake the Baby Thalia King
She sits us down on the bed and questions us as if we were criminals, though we are nothing of the sort. She wants to know exactly what happened as if it will be fair, as if I won’t get in trouble anyway. I am the oldest after all. I should be the most “responsible.” It’s all my fault even though I’m not the one who did it. And it is my fault. All of it. I was the one who begged for a sister 6 years ago. Trust me, I regret it. And when, after 9 whole months of waiting, I finally did get one, I realized that I underestimated life as an only child. I should have appreciated how I could make all the noise I ever dreamed of and not have to worry about waking the baby. And when that baby grew old enough to have a mind for herself,
she was dumb enough to make the same mistake I did. So there was 9 more months of waiting, followed by 3 more years of don’t wake the baby. But when there is a duet of two perfect instruments, instead of a solo act, they long to make music together, and it becomes harder and harder to silence them until one day they burst and the explosion is so colossal that things are broken, children scream, all of Europe catches fire, and the baby is woken.
Thank You, Basement Music
Woman in the Background Unnoticed
I remember being in the basement with my brother Mikey, where we would slouch on the cushions of the faded sofa, pouring ginger ale into our mouths from red solo cups. We wouldn’t chat too much, just casually announce thoughts that popped into our heads. There was a black speaker down there. We’d convert mood to music, and crank up the tunes just a bit too loud, so we could feel it pound into our skulls and heat our minds. It had to be the right music or everything was ruined. There’s nothing worse than the wrong sound; it conflicts with the vibe in the most frustrating of ways, like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle with the wrong pieces.
He was walking when she said hi, camera in hand, strap resting around her neck. I stopped near a pair of trees. New leaves drawing shadows on the paved walk. Hair wild from wind, she gestured to her camera, the black strap of his overalls fell as he shrugged.
Lexy Lott
Some days it would be Queen, this huge sound that seemed to seep through the speakers and cloud heavily in the air. Other times it was Black Flag or Misfits, who made us want to flip over coffee tables and shatter windows from the overwhelming excitement. I assume all these days on the dust bunny sofa took a toll on my brain and Mikey’s as well. Some days we were Queen and some days we were Misfits. Everything could be foggy and calm; we let lullaby tunes roll from our minds into our musical medium. Other days we just wanted to scream and break things. Thank you, basement music.
CG Marchl
He clung onto a toy hand grenade, knuckles as white as his hair. They walked where they became blobs, he almost disappeared. He was made of wire, skin barely sticking. Affording toys of war but no food. She bent him like a wooden mannequin able to sketch her picture. “Can I take a photo of you?” No.
Dali’s The Persistence of Memory: Is this a Dream? Delia Petrus
Tick-tick, tick-tick. Clocks hum. Sun gleams on gold plated pocket watches. Blinding light melts away time, disintegrates reality. Idle blues and crisp tans shadow over this scene as if to pretend it’s just a hot day in the desert. As if. From being different, transfixed in other’s stares; Dali now empowers his oddness; no painting goes without it. Rectangular prisms placed over sand, a horse withering away, unbothered by Dali’s capability to play. This is a dream, another dimension. No pixie dust will fly you here. Clocks forgotten from fictional pioneers are scattered about, sending shivers to your brain saying “You forgot something.” Unfamiliar faces collide in your mind. Colors swirl together. The tall letterman that passed you by, the woman with curly auburn hair on the sidewalk. Everyone’s faces
you thought you knew fade. Apricot noses, peach smiles, transfigured into single colors; single strokes of a brush dissolve these faces into mountains, rivers, sunsets, until all that is left are their watches. Pocket watches telling untellable time. Tick-tick, tick-tick. An eager scrawny arm ticks around and around numbers, but nothing changes. The same forgotten faces completely gone. Regulated pocket watches enlarged for abnormality do not change. Days pass. The picturesque scene fades, fading into our everlasting memory, down one of millions of paths to the same deep dark room of memories where our dreams sleep. Time goes by. Our memory of what we hold to be true and what we speculate is reality, silently fall to sleep and clash together. Time will go on, dragging our thoughts and memories with it, ensuring they will not be forgotten.
Would You Mind My Smoking?
Schoolhouse Blues
Two friends chance to see each other in the lobby of a hotel. They gather in front of the large single hung window and decorative shoots of bamboo. Pandaman, the (much) shorter of the two, eyes the bamboo suspiciously. The two men sit down, a polite silence sits down with them. It has been a long time since they’ve seen each other. Neither knows what has been going on since the last time they met, both wish they hadn’t run into each other. They might as well be strangers. Bandi cuts into the silence, asking a rhetorical question. “Would you mind my smoking?” This serves just as much as to break the silence than to actually ask permission. To Bandi’s surprise, Pandaman instantly replies “Would you mind my extinction?” Bandi lowers his lighter, taken aback. Slowly, a grin spreads on his face. The two friends chuckle together like they saw each other every weekend, not every five years. The ice had been broken, just not the way Bandi had imagined.
You get off the bus, security waits at the door. You know you have to go through it all, math, reading, history, the whole shtick. You sit with your hands cuffed to the desk, waiting for it to be over. But you get up, and you start, over and over and over and over again.
Eric Rohrer
Emiliano Siegert-Wilkinson
Walk into a gray-green classroom, eyelids are heavy. You came in ready to go home, you’ll stay that way for the whole day. But your eyes start to close so they don’t bear the weight of your non-existent nap. Only for five minutes, no one will see me. But you shoot up like a diver with no air, the whole class is staring. And you still wake up the next day and it starts over and over and over and over again. Save us from these schoolhouse blues, this dumb old ruse to get us all locked up. Save us from these chained desks, and these burdens we bear on our backs. Save us from these schoolhouse blues! We cry from under our swamps of homework. But we still have to go back, everyday, over and over and over and over again. This schoolhouse is a jailhouse without uniforms.
We still eat gruel, we work all day, with only an hour of free time. We’re herded like cattle, in this big old house, slaughterhouse, jailhouse, schoolhouse. But we need to learn. So we put on our orange, and our “thinking caps,” and we keep going. Over and over and over and over again.
One Simple Word -- Him Cassandra Skweres
It was always him, always pushing me to do things. Persuading me to do whatever wasn’t right, but when I followed his wish, everything fell out of place. We started to argue all the time, even around Bobbi. It was getting out of hand. It was like a spark exploded and he couldn’t keep it in, dragging me to the flame. His rough hands against me, pushing me to do more and more. I need to get out of here, I thought, but it was too late. We already had my baby girl, and he would never want to be apart from her. It was always him, always pushing me to do things. Persuading me to do whatever wasn’t right, but this time, I didn’t follow his wish. I became whole again.
Ghost Signs Jacob Voelker
The names of failed businesses cover the brick buildings. The letters slowly fade away, imitating the company it once represented. With every ghost sign, there is a history. There are the workers, all of whom had family they supported. There were customers, all of whom loved the product. There was the owner, who adored seeing his business thrive. But nothing can be so perfect for so long. Businesses fail. Families become poor. A community loses a luxury and an owner is left with nothing.
GRADE 7
Poetry Is Iam Aiken
Poetry is, dark brown dirt, imprints of metal cleats scar the field keep pushing on-grasp the unimagable, forget burning legs and wasted hours. The sweat on your face like a cold gale, providing you with your only comfort. Poetry is, sitting silently on the pier feet dipped into green water. The rippling calm, slowly changing you warping, curving, but it is just a reflection, you remain, brushing your feet, in the cool green water. Poetry is, the flaky white beneath you, your board carving it into the air. gentle lights, heavenly beacons shrouded behind the snow. the sting on your rosy cheeks, wrapped up behind your scarf. Poetry is, loosing feeling in your legs, as you sit cross-legged staring at an empty screen, wanting to be there, but there is no way to get there no connection,
no bond, no arch, no pathway, no way to live their lives, Poetry is, not just the mountain, but the trees, and the leaves, and the veins, and the baby caterpillar, and his determiniation to survive, Poetry is all of it, Poetry is like this.
Who
William Buchanan The children’s bodies the next day Set in the street in rows like a market In charred chicken. Robert Hass Who would do this massacre of children, killing those bright futures. Without knowledge of the possibility, of what they could’ve done. Who knows, what they could’ve unpacked, they could’ve changed the world. The next geniuses and inventors, pioneers and developers. All of them, killed in one sweep of an arm. One that left them pale and cold, blackened and defaced, departed and silent. Who left them like this, erasing futures, ceasing creativity, that we cannot live without. A life. A thousand lives. A million lives. That are all the same. That live to do the same as their brethren and peers. To those heartless enough to kill. Are all ended. By cruelty,
by vanity, by preconceived notions of humanity. And, by what we see as the truth.
Your World Ellie Clement
Packed with the five senses, the seven seas, the Earth’s four winds Valerie Worth Eyes closed, thinking, imagining what you’ve created in your own little world. Pouring yourself into your characters, an discovering pieces in others. Painting your world in radiant colors, Mikado yellow, rosewood, cerise, azure, colors that bring comfort. Everything you see is vivid, like reality, only the way you made it to be. Everyday, your mindset is a character’s mindset, you are them and they are you. Every situation you’re in, you think of how they would respond. Everything you are is what your characters are, and everything that your favorite characters are is what you are, inside and out. It may be fiction to others, but for you, it’s who you are.
A 13 Year Old Feminist Writes a Poem Azriah Crawley
Poetry is for the princesses the young delicate princesses who do things their own way but are constantly told that they need a prince to save them. Poetry is for the girls. Black girls, white girls, chubby girls skinny girls, each perfect in their own way. Poetry is for the family. The daughters, the mothers in third world countries who can’t get a good education, can’t learn to read, can’t be their very best. Poetry is for the ladies. The ladies in middle school, the ladies in high school who are told to cover their figure because it’s an interruption. Poetry is for the women. The working women who’s income is less than their male colleagues because “That’s just the way it is.” Poetry is for the feminists
for the doctors, for the nurses, for the police officers, for the fire fighters, for the lawyers, for the teachers, for the chefs. For all the things women are told they cannot do.
Chasing Away Worries Madeline Ficca
Giggling, we run. Our floral dresses flying in the wind behind us, And my hair, twirling around, into knotted blonde curls and covering my eyes, as I pull it away. Our little sandals slapping hard against the hot concrete clacking as we jump around, In St. Peters Plaza of Venice. I am 5, and she is 2. And both of us were careless and worriless, little girls. We liked seeing the pigeons, and how they would all take off at once. Worries, soaring into the cotton plush clouds. An eruption of feathers, escaping the world below. You could hear the bells hanging from the cathedral. Slowly chiming as metal, hit metal. And the soft ringing, reverberating throughout the streets of Venice. You could hear the clattering of the plates and silverware, from a nearby cafĂŠ, scraping and scratching, as they stack one on another. And you could hear us, and our ecstatic outbursts of giggles, as we flap our arms, running, away from distress, and running, away from worries. At our feet, the pigeons gathered,
impatiently awaiting for me, to reach into the bag, and shower bread crumbs onto the ground. For them to fetch, as the ponder curiously, the sun, reflecting off their metallic green wings. When we watched the pigeons, we lost our trouble and anxiety. It was just us. Two little girls, chasing away worries in a plaza, and watching them fly.
Spring is Our Savior Alison Harvil
A refrigerated dairy produce truck keeps catching almond and dogwood branches, so much that blossoms blizzard Connor O’Callaghan Too long its been, since we felt warmth from the star above, since our lips kissed falling rain, since our noses smelled spring. We almost let the cold take over, let our thoughts become blizzards; the warmth will never melt the eternal winter. We began to believe that the frozen-wasteland would cage our hearts forever. We thought our savior would never come, we were left in the dark far too long. Yet the world became light, once more. Golden rays came and the evil, the dark dispersed. Our savior came and thawed the cold, brought peace into our hearts, restored faith and happiness. How could we ever believe our savior would never come? The light is our guardian, our protector
is spring.
Summer Days Dani Jordan
He slices the wet flesh of melons. Jeffery Thompson We drive with the heat of the sun coming through my open window. The scent of sea water filling my nostrils breathing in and out. My parents are singing to songs on the radio, my sister is playing cards her head swaying back and forth with the music. I sit and watch the cars out my window go by. My hair flying back from me in waves of hot and cold. People with sunglasses on. Heading for a place that is not in the middle of a long highway stretched out as far as the eye can see. My dad packed watermelon in the ice chest. You can hear it crunch in your mouth as you take a bite. It is blistering outside/the AC cranked up/high as it will go in this beat up old mini van packed with suitcases. We brought our golden retriever he is barking in the back trying to be heard over the radio. I continue to look out the window thinking about the people’s lives and where they might be going. People in small red cars, huge yellow RVs or blue mini vans. I wonder where they are going on this calescent summer day.
Poetry Is Like This Makenna Katarski
Poetry is like a clear skied morning, rain drops from the night before, covering the emerald grass around it. It’s like a sleepless night with your best friend, spitting out your feelings out of delirium, laughter at any comment. Poetry is like wading in the waters, of a rainforest. Searching the murky brown waters for an unknown species, figuring out new ways to survive. It’s like skydiving for the first time, unsure of what you’ll see when you arrive. Poetry is like a bonfire on a summer night, the crackling ashes fly around, landing on branches and leaves, leaving its scent and memory for days. The amber flames waving back and forth, creating such a sensational heat, warming every soul. Poetry is like a swarm of neon colored fireflies, grazing the dewy summer grass. It’s such a fragile being, yet look how bright it shines. Poetry is like the abandoned swing of a park, rust scrapes up against metal, unpleasant squeaking noises reverberate. The childhood best friend, quickly forgotten. Placed into a box of lost memories.
Poetry is like a popsicle on a summer day, the sticky strawberry insides, pouring out onto a blistering concrete corner, feelings left behind. Poetry is like the first taste of cake, the soft and sweet insides, so fluffy and airy on the tip of the tongue. It’s icing shaped into happiness. It’s the cake that brings the family to the table, together at last. Poetry is like the first piano recital, fingers gently grazing the black and white keys, soft sounds coming out by my choice, not stopping for a break, even when my fingers felt as if they would fall off. Poetry is like falling in love again, the pure kind we all dream of.
Beach Overtaken Natalie Kocherzat
Blue rippled and soaked in the fire of blue. Robert Pinsky Ocean waves rippled, a war against the sun. Trying all of its defenses, but still warming. The giant menacing flame in the sky smirked at the ocean’s useless attempts. The salty body of water rolled about, even seeking shelter on tan gravel, to be pulled back in again. Slowly but surly, the sea was drained past our atmosphere, into the unknown. The flame was winning, as always. Still an endless rage, the ocean crashed and thrashed, throwing the perfect storm. The giant fireball knew, though, that billions of years later, all the rage of the ocean would become mayhem. A complete and utter meltdown of the water community. Its attempts were useless. It would soon stand no more than a puddle
deep in the lowest trenches of earth.
Forget How
The Perfect View
Who cares that your toes don’t reach the ground dangling through the idea that the coolest sticker makes you the coolest person and the to-be popular girl. Funny how insignificant that is now and stupid. The spontaneous happiness of being silly warn away like the tops of your old favorite shoes. And when that happens, forget how to not have a care in the world and laugh like you aren’t self-conscious about your smile, to not worry about how people think of you while that thought squeezes into every nook and cranny of you mind. By now you should saying, I never wanted to grow up! seeing that silly Toys R Us jingle become true and over all the responsibilities of your new life you can still hear the happy memories that haunt your stress filled future with hope it will come again.
White fuzz balls throughout the sky. Performing imaginate mysteries and fantasies.
You’re like the happy little red balloon you let go. As the guests leave your party and it flies away in to the calm blue sky pretty birds and planes and stars distract you from the prickly branches that threaten to pop. Until nothing is around and tension builds and you get closer and closer and closer to bursting.
As I look up, the clouds float away. The sun hiding and the sky now gloomy.
that’s when you realize that place in the sky all balloons go, your little balloon heaven//paradise// doesn’t exist and the coolest sticker isn’t going to cut it anymore.
My friends and I drenched, and the rancid smell all in the air. The food is wet and now bitter.
Madison Kyle
Nadia Laswad
From the corner of eye, a shape almost like a airplane but with razor sharp fins, and I laid my eyes on true beauty. The dazzling light glistens on me. Burning my eyes and blurring my sight. A perfect day for a picnic, humid. Setting up the velvety mat, unique silky texture.
Rain starts dripping, the metallic greasy grill fizzing. The barbecue burned to a crisp.
The radiant light peeks through the clouds and gives out the most, beautiful view that awaits us. The spectral colors throughout the sky and give off the richest looks.
Poetry Is
Julia McQuiston Poetry is a trail guiding through my memories. A tale of my life. Poetry is a traumatic journey. Recounting on the memories I don’t want to remember the ones I vaguely remember. It’s the tears I don’t want to shed again. It’s the time I kicked a soccer ball and it flew far far away from the net. It’s the time I got a bad grade on a test even though I studied copious amounts of hours. Poetry is a path that has a rusty guardrail with fog from the perimeter blurring the path ahead. It’s an art form that makes you feel lost and clueless. As if you are on a flat landscape with palm trees reaching high, and mountains looking down on you clueless on what to write. As if you are a lost soul unable to describe beauty in the vividness you need. Poetry is the exact array of stars I saw on my vacation. It’s the precise display of colors on my 5th birthday sign. It’s the painstakingly accurate display account of the clouds hovering the sky. It’s the vividness that is never portrayed in an average writing form. Poetry is 19.25 seconds
into your most beloved you tube video. It’s the first time you fluttered your eyes open. It’s the stance you take 9/10 of an inch away from the circumference of a circular building. It’s the area of your pupil as you drive under the Squirrel Hill tunnel. Poetry is a passing second in your life. Poetry is the protracted night lasting hours one page of homework to the next. It’s the time it takes a well-fit person to run the Pittsburgh Marathon. It’s the minutes it takes a professional to fix your rusty dirt encrusted car. Poetry is a spring touching the earth’s surface. It’s a person you aspire to be. It’s Edgar Allan’s Poe’s lines swarming around in your head. It’s your craziest days and your most average days. It’s time taken from your sleepless nights. Poetry is the root of countless things you fight to hang onto.
Home
Amanda Mitchell The cold morning air lingered through the forest leaving grass and leaves covered in fresh drops of dew. I sit there watching the small bugs nibble moist leaves, sculpting the leaves with tiny bite marks. Bees zoom by rushing back to honeycomb homes to make sweet, gooey honey. Inevitably the roar of a lion will bounce off trees of the exotic jungle. Insects fly back to homes, soft, small groundhogs run with stubby legs back into the ground. The king is awake, he owns everything, stomping through tangled vines and Shiringa trees, vibrating homes of other animals. He lays down and watches over his kingdom, catches and devours anything that tries to run past him. If he sees you, it’s over. When he feels satisfied he treads back to where he came from. Birds start chirping again and the sky transforms into a sea of colors soon millions of stars escape darkness and illuminate ground below. It feels like a fairy tale,
it feels like nothing can hurt you, it feels like home.
Fan
Steve Perekiszka Steady is the noise throughout the night. Keeps you calm, keeps you cool. Sweat, pouring down your back. Realized; not yet, too tired to care. Ruin this, nothing will. No school to worry about. Hot days of summer go by fast, an object time is not. Time to sleep; for me is enough. Fan keeps humming, eyes stay shut.
Poetry is Like This
Lily Weatherford-Brown Poetry is morning breeze, right before storm. Gentle pour of rain, rolling in clear scribbles down, tears on a cheek, little brothers chasing frog catching it in a milk crate, big tom cat bringing home baby mocking bird. Poetry is riding down country roads on a motorcycle. Feeling vibrations rumble through you, after a while you don’t hear the road anymore, quiet, peaceful, wind ruffles your jacket, You feel if You flapped your arms, You would fly. Poetry is rafting a river at noon. Staring down, into nothingness no glimmer, no blue, clear like the kind of air you can dance on. White noise—quiet but loud, your paddle rams against river rock, raft turns like a tractor— wide and slow. Poetry is a forest walk in the afternoon. No silence in the forest,
squirrel chatter, bird call, twig crack, rock fall, footsteps in mud, the air smells different here. Moss pads cover dead tree bark, you skip rocks at the river bank. Poetry is catching fireflies in a forest clearing. The air is sticky, try to ignore heat on the back of your neck. It is still too heavy to dance in. The fairies wake up, suddenly your feet are dancing. Catch fire in a mason jar. Father calls back to you but you still want to dance with the fairies. Poetry is your mother’s sweet voice. on a hot night, sweaty and tired, And so is your mother but she sings, she sings to you until You shut your eyes and can’t see the moon. Poetry is like this.
Poetry Was
Trumansburg
Poetry was the day you forgot your housekey and you sat outside on a cold fall afternoon. Your lips trembled, and every time you tried to pick up your pencil it managed to slip from your fingertips.
Afternoons at my grandfather’s were quiet, with a favorite fantasy book and a bowl of fruit on the lawn chair. I would caper about the kitchen, counting minutes until my cousins’ arrival.
Anika Weber
Poetry was a glass of lemonade. Every sip made you thirsty for more, and confused bees gathered around any drops that fell from your glass. Poetry was a spill on the coffee table, gathering the mess with a thousand paper towels. The broken mug struck your foot, and you noticed hours later. Your foot was covered in beige band-aids. Poetry was a stray cat sitting on the porch in the rain. You watched from the window, desperate to pet him but knowing he would run into the wet street. Poetry was a dying street light filling the street with temporary light, scaring you half to death and hoping you don’t crash into a full garbage can.
Chloe Werner
When the ramshackle old trucks pulled up, and dog’s paws scrabbled animatedly against tile floor, there was always a beautiful shiver of thrill and glee starting at my toes and fluttering to my stomach, because now the fun was really going to begin, the kind with the laughter and unheard music. We’d run out to the yard before the house, a brilliant shamrock, bedecked in verbena flowers. We’d raid the thorn covered blackcap bushes, drinking in the sweet and tangy flavor. I remember falling in love with the taste. Then, with our hands still sticky with juice and our shirts displaying new-born stains, we’d chase each other to and fro till nobody could run for the stitch in their side, and seek refuge from It in the boughs of the maple trees. When it started to grow dark out, flashes of lights would appear all over the yard. Fireflies, everyone insisted, but I was sure at least one was a fairy, and dreamed of catching her, having her dance over my palm. Dinner came next, and I’d enter the kitchen, met with noise and light, but never space. Dogs would run through people’s legs,
and the kids would all share the armchair, giggling as we squished against the green and gray cushions. At night, I slept in a rose-pink room, with white trim and flower-patterned lampshades. Slivers of moonlight would side past sheer white curtains. The sky would be spared from inky blackness by pendant stars. My eyes would hold their glisten long after I fell asleep.
GRADE 6
Water bottle
Ode to my Freedom
I sit there holding your water, and I don’t get a thanks! You put your dirty mouth on me, and you casually drink my insides. What did I ever do to you? And when you are finally done with me, you throw me away! How do you think that feels?! You crinkle my clear flesh when you are mad. And you kick me around when you are angry. Like I said before: what did I do to you? You toss me into the air, SMACK! Right onto the ground again. You know what? I am done with this job and I have had enough with people! I am going to retire from this job. Wait…… Can water bottles retire?
Let me tell you about my freedom:
Emerson Davis Martin
Shelley Demus
My freedom broke the chains of captivity long ago, freeing the people of color from a time of slavery and discrimination. My freedom is the light at the end of the tunnel, that lit up the Underground Railroad for thousands of slaves. Ode to my freedom! My freedom inspired people like Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Fredrick Douglas, and so many others to rise up and lead the way for people of color. Without my freedom there would be no Barack Obama, Jackie Robinson, Serena Williams, George Washington Carver, or Kenny Washington. Without my freedom a lot we have today would be no more. Ode to my freedom!
The
Payton Dosdor I am from animals. From a loud golden lab, barking every time somebody knocks at the door. I am from tiny brown monkeys, hanging upside down. I am from climbing up a big huge tree until the branches get worn out and they SNAP! I am from Tomato’s cheese fries and seafood, To biting into a big red juicy tomato’s like it’s an apple. Having seafood every time were at the beach, but now the cheese fries make my fingers too cheesy. I am from the long ever lasting road trips we take in May to go to Disney World. I am from being so worn out from walking when I get to my hotel I just want to FLOP! I am from seeing all the different types people as I walk around. I am from driving around, and seeing all the different types of physical features. I am from the stories, the myths of the hills have eyes. I am from a big brother who is always trying to wrestle me, from a big sister always bossing me around. I am from trying to fight back, to trying not to get bossed around. I am from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. To having every single one of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast on DVD. I am from the Bernstein Bears and the Wonder Pets. I am from Max and Ruby to Little Bill. From SpongeBob, and Lazy Town.
I am from friends who came and gone, but I am from the ones, who stayed and care about me. The ones who were there through the worst. I AM FROM…
Black Lives Matter
Sadness is a Spell
Black lives matter, has anyone noticed yet? Black people get killed like chickens get killed on a farm. I feel like we are the history. Do some white and black feel the same? POW, POW all we hear. Cops kill us like we are NOTHING. THEN get away with it. Kick, slap, and slam, we are done. Our life is gone in a blink of an eye. Then it goes goodbye good guy.
Sadness is just reality stealing your soul. The realization keeps you grateful for every pleasure. Sadness is just a break from depression.
Myamee Harris
Black lives matter, has anyone noticed yet? Are we getting killed because of our skin? If so, that is the lowest thing in the world. White people kill us because of our skin. We get killed because of our skin color. That isn’t fair, AT ALL! Black lives matter, has anyone noticed yet? Are we getting killed because of our skin? If so, that is the lowest thing in the world. Black and white people kill us because of our skin. We get killed because of our skin. Black lives matter, has anyone noticed yet? Has anyone noticed yet?
Mayan Harris-Gershon
Sadness is loved by so many, it has so many alternates: misery melancholy woe despair. Sadness is a tumble down the stairs that keeps you immune to the greater falls of life. Sadness is a path. Sadness is hope. Your sadness is joy. It is proof that life is more than one thing. Sadness can drive you mad. For you, it’s a tour around insanity. But for me, Sadness is a spell leading me away from crisis.
Cinders in My Path Roan Hollander
My legs turn to cinders and my heart thunders as I flounce towards the field, attracted like a magnet. I hear my sneakers beat against the worn away beat down juggled and smacked, rubber track portraying a gamut of rust and silt. It sounds like suction cups on tile. Slick, shloorp, tworp. Sticky. Heat waves steam and rise away from the pretending, fake turf, and sun rays shower upon my head. A golden haze rests over my sight as I scamper towards you, ball tucked beneath my arm. A fluorescent herbal field glimmers in the distance, this one real nature. No mask. Beguiling and swaying in a humid breeze. No shade. My field, our field, your field. The field I play soccer on, a field where I release energy and spite, kick away and run as fast as I can. The field where I remember a left-footed goal shot inches from the goalie that rocketed up into the corner of a menacing net.
The field where I took pride in a coach saying Get that boy off the field! And that stretch of grass where I could run so fast my heart felt it would explode. Wowing everyone with speed and earning the nickname ‘Wheels.’ Where I can be pugnacious and challenging. The field where I play soccer. I play you. I kick you! I pinch you, stretch you, live out your name until the dirt is in turmoil, mud jammed in my cleats, the sun rays are no longer golden but soothing, creamy cerulean woven with silver moonlight encasing the shivering wildlife. Now I play on the roof of my school sometimes and feel trapped, because I play soccer where I can be free. I can run, dribble, kick, shoot, help carry my teams and my soul can fly. Soar among fluffy cotton clouds and those watching blue skies that see my every move, glow among moonlight and be a living match at day. Shred that golden field. No words could possibly describe how I quiver with excitement when I see you played. How I bush and perk and itch to get onto the field, to wear you, entrance you, be you. Soccer,
you slosh and curdle through my veins, throttling me forward. You empower me to keep going, through a purple knee that looked like a brain and tiny turf rubber beads jabbing my thigh. I got up even though my hands felt like fire and it was so cold I was a walking popsicle. But the power you gave me shoved me and dragged me on, gripped my limbs and swept me away. Because sliding on turf like surfing the air does NOT feel good. I kick your children, shred your fields, score in your nets, steal your techniques. But I love you. I hope you love me too, soccer.
Why?
Myesha Holloway Pow Pow day and night. Moms on the news crying cause they lost their children to a stupid dude that just wanted to shoot. Police on the run trying to identify who killed who. This is too much. What has the world come to? Funerals taste like money, which some of the families don’t have. Donations raised to the sky because people care. I wish we had a way to stop these shootings. It’s too much and terrifying. You can lose your life at any age now. This needs to stop now. Why is this happening?
Leo the Lion Madison Lott
People are afraid. People say they’re unstable, scary, ferocious. I am not afraid in the slightest. I say that they are beautiful, amazing, majestic. No one would believe me though. Everyone says that they should not be allowed to be kept, even in a zoo. I say they should. The lions are beautiful. I say their beauty is shown in the step of their paw. In the arch of their back. In the shake of their mane. They are lions, majestic creatures of Earth. Once when in a field out in the open country, I found a baby lion cub. Its mother was nowhere in sight, and the poor thing was shaking. I wrapped it in my shrug, puffs of fiery orange clumps sticking out everywhere. I took him home, and snuck him past my parents. From there, I bundled him in blankets and fed him milk till he grew out of it. Still, one question invaded my mind day after day. What should I name this little guy? It had been weeks since I rescued him but he did not have a name. I pondered and brooded, but still had nothing.
Finally, it hit me one day. He and where sitting on a hill watching the stars. My favorite consolations are Gemini and Leo. I still need a name for you little buddy. I noticed he was looking up, I looked up too. Right above us, was the consolation of Leo the Lion! That’s it! that’s what your name will be! Leo, Leo the Lion.
Love is Life
My Puzzle
Ode to love,
I’m grateful for my gifts of kindness, intelligence, loyalty, honesty, and respect that are used to put together a puzzle creating me.
Bryanna Luster
And love is hope. Love is happiness, And love is the world. I adore love because it gives me the strength to be who I am each and every day. Tomorrow, today, there will always be a day that comes and goes quick, and the love is always there to show Love is my family caring for me, and love is my friends who are always there for me. And love is my life and surrounds me forever because I am loves baby, forever and ever. Ode to love, is what I say.
Neila McElfresh
My kindness is a sweet song with a halo of chirping birds that is compassionate to everyone. Its mellow voice makes many friends that will always be there because kindness is the first piece of my puzzle. My intelligence is a golden chain of answers that are linked together with knowledge. My test scores are trophies for my hard work and determination that will always be visible because intelligence is the second piece of my puzzle. My loyalty is a repetitive beat that goes on forever. I am faithful everyday to everyone I know and I will always be like a joyfully monotonous beat that will forever stay consistent because loyalty Is the third piece of my puzzle. My honesty is a bell that rings out the truth and illuminates every room with righteousness and trust making everything more believable
because it will always be true that honesty is the fourth piece of my puzzle.
Auschwitz
My respect is the ocean in the summer. Its calm and peaceful, but when the sun sets you are always guaranteed to feel warm and happy. Because the ocean is I nice place to go when you want respect and respect will always be the fifth piece of my puzzle.
Innocent people lie in a closet, their bones wrapped by a thin layer of flesh. Remains of cloth stay buried underneath, representing their clothes.
My puzzle has created me, The person that you know you want to be around.
Mila McGrosky
Shifted limbs stick out from someone else’s back. They’re rotting away as if no one cared. At least that’s what they thought. But families cared, and so did friends. Survivors shake from panic of being shot. One wrong word or move and, BANG. Do our lives even matter to you? We make a wonderful melody and it’s all wrecked by a man, thirsty for power. It seems they are always watching, without moving. They stand there with their chins up and their rifles at the ready. One small order. One small signal. And just another life is lost. Because we’re different then you. You treat us like we did
something wrong. Put us to sleep with nothing, but a torn rag on. March us in the cold winter wind. Then when we’re all dried up. Full of working, cleaning, staying up in the middle of the night. You send us off, somewhere unknown. We believe in something you don’t. So why do you have to punish us? Why can’t we live life the way we want? Why do you have to take that away from us?
Afternoon Basketball Oliver Moore
When the sun kisses the horizon, you see things that you didn’t before. You can focus only on small things rather than big picture ideas. It’s when you hear things or see things and you can’t shake them. The idea stays with you and you keep thinking about what you saw or heard and it hurts even more. I heard things I haven’t forgotten and probably never will. And then I ran. I ran the fastest I’ve ever run before. I thought about what I kept hearing, as well. That was my biggest mistake because that made it even more painful. The thing is I should’ve just left. But no. I listened and I thought so intently that fear isn’t a good enough word to describe the feeling I experienced. Everything, once blanketed in golden light, turned a sickly yellow. And he kept yelling and she kept screaming and I kept thinking. And then a clap! that echoed throughout the whole park. And he kept yelling but she had stopped. That’s when I started running.
Ocean Depths
Ode to Pancakes
I am a flower bursting into many colors. A wishing well, of many sunken dreams.
Oh pancakes, you are so delicious. You are the queen of breakfast. You come in so many flavors. There are limitless combinations that I can eat. Pancakes, you are like a meadow with syrup flowers and a butter sun. You taste so sweet and fluffy if you were a person I’d marry you. You are the cherry on top of my icecream sundae. I can put whipped cream on you. I can eat you not only for breakfast, but for lunch and dinner too! Pancakes, I love you!
Elizabeth Neel
I am a bird following my heart, no matter what direction it takes me. I don’t give up on my dreams, I conquer them, I succeed. My life is a song, it’s heard by many. It’s a rainbow, filled with many different things. I am a star, shining bright in the sky, so all can see, the beauty within me. I am the top of the tree, right where I want to be. My heart is the ocean, deep and calm. I am the line, that’s meant to be crossed. When I arrive, time will stop, and into the ocean I will drop.
Bailee Preston
Slushy Streets
The Excuses Of Bellatrix Lestrange
I am from the midnight sky and millions of stars that gaze upon me. I am from a flightless bird with beautiful colors standing on its back. I am from garlic-smothered meatballs and long strands of angel hair, I am from the arms of Aunt Susie’s willow tree hugging me, and her butterfly bushes tickling my nose. I am from a fallen angel with beautiful, brown hair and large brown eyes that capture you, and a hero that fights burning winds. I am from band shirts and fuzzy Hollister hoodies and ear buds swinging low from my head. I am from high-top Converse and low-cut Vans, with black Butler-printed socks. I am from NYC strolls in the crisp air of winter, and slushy streets that soak through my shoes. I am from Rupert’s Deli, and his flavorsome Italian hoagies, with vanilla bean ice cream served in the traditional Styrofoam bowl. I am from green, rusty Ford pick-ups, and silver, metallic-painted Highlanders. I am from stinging paper cuts, and stubbed toes from kitchen islands. I am from Pittsburgh, steel city, once polluted skies. I am from America, melting pot of the world, and I am from Earth.
I would like to start out with this: I did it for a good cause. People say I did it just for the sake of killing. But let me reiterate. I did it for a good cause!
Sela Rectenwald
Josephine Reiter
Everything I have done. Every killing, every torturing, they were to give wizards freedom. So that we would not have to hide our powers. So that we would not have to become a secluded, almost wiped out race. And the nice thing about the Avada Kedavra curse, is that it never leaves a mark. So all those corpses, can just go to science! I know it seems counter productive, donating bodies to muggles so that the muggles can figure out how to stay alive. But it masks what we are really doing. Which is to give the wizards freedom, and not anything else. In fact, some of the death eaters and I have started a fund. All the other death eaters, bring us the bodies of their victims, and we just magic them off to the nearest research center!
Ode to Winter
Ode To Potatoes
The way the sun rises— its ethereal white glancing off of drifts of silver sequins, how with the sun comes vortexes of light, glowing novas and galaxies circling a single star. The deceptively solid snow that swallows a creature whole, but throws back light and swells with every snowflake that joins its ranks. As animals cross the border between autumn and winter, so do their coats, jewel toned rainbows changing to polished silver and ivory. Squirrels with icy white fur, stags woven from mist. Deep cracks and the fairy like sound of broken glass as ice shatters, numbing cold pulling the snow from once frozen banks. Snow moves up, down, sideways, with no control over its own movements, spectral flurries of floating ice, magnifying the sun by tenfold, crystals of light dancing, dancing.
Flakey brown skin with a soft warm inside. The heated yellow butter is as satisfying as a newborn’s cry.
Iris Roth-Bamberg
Morgan Snyder
Shredded like paper, a golden brown pile. Heaven on a fork. Potatoes are god’s gift to earth. Fried, crispy loaded with cheese and bacon oozing with flavor. Licking the plate until there is no more. Crunchy squares with a lovely center. Chewy green peppers to top it off. Perfection in a square. Smooth and soothing. Like clouds floating through the sky. Buttermilk and home style and even loaded. All great. Potatoes are the best thing that we could ever have on planet earth. Potatoes complete me. All types.
All flavors. Everything.
Wall
Lilly Werling We both know the wall isn’t there yet, but I see it. I see this wall of hatred sturdy in your eyes. I see it when your hurting, deep beneath your scratching cries. I see it when you look at me, immediately noticed as “different”. I know that you’re pretending, there’s a reason. A reason for those words, spitting when I’m near, those words repeat unending, getting closer to my ear. I see it with raging flames, and sharp, pointy knives, it screams each step I take, go back, save your lives! So I’ll run faster towards this wall, this wall that separates us all! I’ll run until I reach this wall with fire burning ‘round but when I meet the wall, the upright wall, it crumbles to the ground. I’m just standing here, listening to the sirens blaring ‘cause I was daring to confront you on my own. I’ll just wait for another day ‘cause justice is yet to come home.