Voices from 9th Street: 6-8 Literary Arts

Voices from 9th Street 6-8 Literary Arts Department Spring 2015

Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 A Creative and Performing Arts Magnet

Voices from 9th Street Spring 2015

Literary Arts Department

Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 Creative and Performing Arts Magnet

CopyrightŠ2015 Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12, a Creative and Performing Arts Magnet Pittsburgh Public Schools, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The copyright to the individual pieces remains the property of each individual.

Reproduction in any form by any means without specific written permission from the individual authors is prohibited.

For inquiries: Mara Cregan, Literary Arts Chair Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 111 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 mcregan1@pghboe.net

The Literary Arts Program at Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 is a seven-year, intensive course of study in creative writing. Here at Pittsburgh CAPA, students with a love of writing and a commitment to achievement have opportunities to pursue their passion that are unavailable virtually anyplace else. Our young writers explore every literary genre: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama. Each year, working with specialists in every genre, they take increasingly advanced courses, as they work to create a broad and sophisticated writing portfolio.

It is with great pleasure that I present the 2014-2015 literary arts anthology. The work represents the efforts of a talented group of literary artists.

Mara Cregan Literary Arts Chair Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12

Grade 6

The Inner City Ian Aiken

I live in a city full of history and charm, but the other day, I discovered an inner city only known by me.

This beauty has a river, trying to stray away from its forever the same path.

In the center of the city lies a haven of life surrounded by the urban city everyone knows.

This haven is a city of trees, tall and proud, protecting their inner city.

The biting cold does them no harm.

A machine, wanting to do good and help creates puffy white clouds that drift into the sky.

As white birds made glowing by the sun fly over head squirrels run on the ground, through their city only I see.

I looked up at the tall buildings, built from steel, surrounding an inner city of nature. Trees and bushes, protecting the secret inhabitants.

This city is hidden to all, but it has let me see its beauty, its charm, its strength, and its urbaneness even though it is nature.

As bitter cold bites at my red cheeks and cold hands I take a sip of my cocoa and as the warm liquid rushes down the empty river of my throat.

I break my oath and think, “I’ve had better cocoa�.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Sakura Tree Ian Aiken

I Among all of the trees standing still for everyone to see.

One stands out like a sore thumb, the pink petaled Sakura Tree II The tree holds out its branches to let all see the bright pink petals suspended in flight toward the ground.

III Some can see the full beauty of the Sakura, but some can only can see the outer beauty of the tree.

They do not understand all it has to offer.

IV Someday the pink petals will perilously plummet.

But until then they sit, blown by the wind, amusing the people of this time V The tree is a guardian of the ground forever holding its position protecting the spot of earth it will forever cover.

VI The thin brown branches stick out to try and reach what they never will be able to.

Their shadow’s cover the ground forever trapped,

for an indecipherable reason.

VII Oh people of the modern world, why do imagine steel structures reaching to the sky?

Do you not the see the beauty in the brown buildings reaching out with their pink streamers that have been here so long?

VIII I know Oaks and Maples the famous sturdy trees that everyone knows.

But I do know the beauty that has never been told, only seen.

IX As the tree stood strong it joined the line of all the others.

X At the sight of the Sakura with majestic petals hanging high even the bawds of trees would amaze at their beauty.

XI As he strolled through the path in the vehicle of his feet, the shadow pierced him with fear.

But it was just the tall standing tree XII The wind is blowing the petals must be as a tornado

spinning toward the ground.

XIII As the fell and continued to fall, The tree protected all that could not from the storm of night

My Fault

William Buchanan

“Get Out Now!” he screamed.

“Fine, you don’t care about me like a good father would!” I answered. I walked out the door, down the steps, and started the car drove away and didn’t look back.

7-10-98: I came out of the tree line and saw a gorgeous field of yellows, oranges and reds in front of me. I had seen pictures of fields of wildflowers but I had never seen one in person, or walked in one. As I sauntered through the stunningly beautiful field, I noticed how peaceful everything was. I breathed in the soothing scents and listened to the comforting sounds. I mused to myself, “Why have I never come to the country before?”

I found a flat mossy spot to lie down upon. The warm sun and the scent of flowers made my eyes droop, and I began to fall asleep. The warm sun and the scent of flowers made my eyes droop, and I began to fall asleep. How much later, I don’t know, cold drops of water on my face awakened me. I sat up confused. How much time had passed? The sky had turned from a dreamy light blue to a foreboding green rain turned to freezing ice. The wind howled through the air, turning the hail into a stinging barrage of ice.

As I lay in the deep gully with the hail hammering at the rock, I begin to here a loud grinding noise. I looked up to see a massive boulder, dislodged by the wind, bearing down on me. I dove out of the way and rolled down farther into the ravine, only to be met by a massive tree falling right in my path. I jumped over the log and landed on the side of my foot. As soon as I tried to get up I realized that my ankle was broken. “Broke my own ankles,” I laughed. I was delirious from pain. I tried to stand but fell and hit my chest on a rock.

I crawled to a nearby rocky cave and sat there laughing trying to contain myself to no avail. I kept laughing and laughing and saying over and over, “I survived a tornado”

until I started crying from pain.

Then every thing blacked out.

7-11-98: I woke up two days later to the sound of a helicopter. I tried to look up at my rescuer, but the pain was too much, and I fell into unconsciousness again hoping the rescuers were friendly.

7-12-98: I woke up in a hospital with machines beeping around me. I could feel the cast on my ankle and it didn’t hurt as much but my chest still hurt like heck. I saw a doctor holding a needle. He injected it into my arm, my eyelids drooped and I fell into a deep drug-induced sleep.

The doctors tell me I am going to most likely die in a day from internal bleeding that they can’t stop unless I have a dangerous surgery. So I am writing this so my story is passed down and I am remembered.

7-13-98: I am alive! I made it through the risky surgery to stop the bleeding. My leg was a lot worse than I had thought.

I had broken my shin and ankle along with my femur and pelvis. I had also dislocated both my knees. Thinking about my injuries I realized, with a scare, that I would most likely never walk again after my leg surgery. I never will go to the country again. I hate it. My mom and friends know I’m safe but they don’t know that I might be paralyzed from the waist down.

7-14-98: My mom came to visit me with a bunch of my friends. As soon as they wheeled me out my mom ran to me and gave me a hug and started crying from joy. Then she realized that I was in a wheelchair. “Honey, what happened?” I told her the story of the tornado and that I was paralyzed. She started tearing up in the middle of the story and by the end the tears were flowing freely down her face.

My friends had given us space up, but now they crowded around us trying to comfort us and saying, “I’m sorry dude.”

My mom started crying again and I had no idea why. Only then I realized that my dad, my dad that I had argued with, wasn’t there. My friend told me what had happened and I felt tears in my eyes. “He was out drinking with friends to get over our argument and… and he got in a car crash and died of injuries the next day.” I felt awful. I started yelling over and over “ I should have been there!” My mom tried to calm me but she couldn’t. I felt guilty and it made me feel sick.

I started crying and for the next few days all I did was eat, sleep, and cry.

It was my fault he died.

Sunrise City

William Buchanan The sun illuminates the dampening mist, dispersing it into pieces that lurk in the shade, the water overflowing onto the river walk, overflowing by our standards.

The people walking around hurriedly, importantly, purposefully not looking at us, a group of 18 kids and a middle aged adult.

They swarm around like bees in a hive, just avoiding those next to them.

A blinding light, focused down a man-made ravine reflects a building onto itself.

The glass, a mirror that enchants it, people inside undisturbed by the morning light.

So many designs taken from nature, clouds, trees,

shade, shoots, telling us what to do, but nobody stops, nobody listens.

If this was a forest, the buildings are trees, the bridges are logs, the streets are animal paths, and the humans are ants.

Havens are rare, but existent, they are the parts that we haven’t touched, yet touched the whole time, trimming the grass, uprooting the weeds, trying to help, but not really succeeding just killing the species we haven’t really found.

We all think we know, we don’t really, just standing there sipping on cups that just add to the mess.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Mountain Range William Buchanan

I Among many in the world, this one stands out, it is home.

II It is tall and proud, tall enough to be a giant, proud like a person,

completing a challenge III The mountains in the back, just as a setting to a life-long drama IV A hiker and an adherent are one.

A hiker, an adherent, and the range are one.

V I do not know which to hate, the brutal fatality and realization of danger, or the “innocent like a child� mask it adopts.

Thoughtless killing, or the denouncing the crime.

VI Icicles cover the ledges, like wild glass rugged and placid, barring those who wish to pass, a natural DO NOT ENTER sign.

VII Oh those strong hikers of Bartlett, why do you over look the obvious, do you not see that the best of all, is right behind you, not to be found, that tangles with the trees of your own backyard?

VIII I know all of your trails, with enticing, inescapable views, but I know too, that this is artificial.

IX As the ridges go out of sight, it falls before another range, though it still is, of course, better than the new.

X At the first sight of cliffs, we doggedly crowd the window filling the car with many a shout, some joyous, some telling the joy to pipe down.

XI We ride through the mountains, and breathe in, once, being scared, frightened by their shadows, being the eternal drop, that ends in the final ultimatum, death.

XII The snow is melting, spring must be coming.

XIII It was dark all day, it was snowing, it was going to snow, yet the mountains stand there wrapped only in the meager shreds of trees, and their solitude doing what I’ll be doing‌ staying put.

City Poem

Ellie Clement Walking on pavement made by man through a city filled with things that sets it apart from the others.

A lengthy river flowing below a mustard yellow bridge that cars and buses drive over.

Geese skid to a halt, landing the murky water right across from us.

Throwing banana bread as they catch it in their mouths.

Buildings towering high reflecting the sunlight into our eyes.

A wooden pavilion in the center, trees with leaves dyed black.

A tunnel, an escape from the rush of the town.

Sunlight shining on little patches of the ground while others are blocked by shadows.

A path of hedges leading to a fountain that is not flowing and green bridges along the way.

Returning to the building we came from.

Crossing the streets filled with rushing cars trying to get where they need to be.

Questionnaire Ellie Clement

What is your name?

My name is a mystery.

It is not important at the moment.

I do not need to be addressed by name.

I do not need to be identified because I am anonymous.

Where do you live?

I live in the fields filled with violets and the towering waterfalls with vines entangled in the rocks.

I live in the icy caves with huge mouths and the jungles with ten-foot tall trees and red bugs the size of my face.

What is an important event that happened in your life?

From the little moments of pointless conversations to the important changes.

Every second is meaningful because something is happening at every moment.

What are your plans for the future?

To stay in my mind and never leave the worlds I’ve made To explore more of the places no one else has ever been.

To stay with the people who I know the best.

Where despite the conflicts, it is a much softer blanket than reality.

13 Ways to Look at a Sunflower Elena Conway

I. A tall flower, yellow petals spread wide, just an innocent thing that does not know, or care that it shall die so very soon, in a freezing wind, bearing the saplings of snow,

and the faintest hint of a song, from another world.

II. A young child, arms spread wide, face a golden hallow of joy and smiles, head bobbing in the summer breeze.

Her tall, slim body dressed in a gown of green, forever dancing to the song of the wind.

III. A snack not yet grown, it’s seeds almost ready to eat, growing in the ugly, oversized shell of a head, becoming bigger and browner with every passing day.

So mouth-wateringly tasty that I can hardly wait.

IV. A tall, green podium, holding the rare yellow diamonds, that shine in the morning sun.

Held there by the fat, large, brown cushion, bearing the fruit of the jewels’ prosper.

Rough brown seeds, the children of the loved and wanted.

V. Many see the tall, yellow, almost iridescent petals, and think “that must be the crown jewel of this flower.

The petals agree, the rest of the body doesn’t.

The simple war that occurs in such a flower is this, which part is best?

The seeds, which are the children, And the next generation?

The green stem that feeds them all?

Or the shiny and iridescent yellow jewels, That get the whole flower noticed?

I do not know.

VI. The seeds are bland, salty and sweet, all at once.

The petals collect the bright sun, and use it to make themselves glow, but also to feed.

The tall, green stem feeds the whole plant water, as well as making and feeding the sweet sugar, the food they all eat.

The head holds and makes the seeds, creates the next generation, and holds it safe until its time for them to leave.

A big city, filled with citizens, who help the others grow VII. The tormenters of another city, they eat all, and then bring more.

They drain the city dry, and then get another batch of prey, to keep their enormous appetites sated.

A dryness of thirst approaching, threatening their victims of a slow, painful death, to fill another, with the very thing they need.

VIII. A blemish. a thing that lives for a short while, but is then blown out, like a candle.

Their perspectives are so odd.

Especially for something that dies so fast, and so young.

Believing the world to be theirs, But once they die, They see a whole new world, Filled with unknown possibilities, And think to themselves, “how was I concealed from this?”

And dying with tears in their eyes.

IX. A yellow thing, a goody-two-shoes, Smiling and waving, because it has no problems.

Acting like a child, and also treated like one.

Why none know, but one thing’s for sure, it is young, and it is foolish, but it thinks itself big and tall.

How idiotic.

X. It is greedy.

It is selfish.

It does not share, At least, Not for long.

It pollinates, sure, but it is hard to get.

It does not give, but it definitely takes.

It is green with jealousy of others, But you cannot see it, For it is always green.

XI. A soft touch.

Petals of silk.

A heavenly aroma, covers my hand, my head, all of me.

A soft whisper, of a long-forgotten song, sung long before me.

But it is to bold for this quiet.

It must scream somewhere, so it choses its bright yellow, it’s loud green.

But, to set it apart, it has a brown center.

XII. A song?

Or a rhyme?

A poem?

Or a dance?

I don’t understand.

For the words you speak and sing, are strange and new to me.

Are you happy or sad?

I just cannot tell, because your face does not give answers.

And i wonder, why do you act so indecisively?!

XIII. I sense your joy.

I see it in your face as you move.

But now you are confused, because to you, I speak in riddles, ones you will never solve.

You now seem sad, and it makes me wonder, was my last statement wrong?

What do you see in me?

A feeder?

Or a killer?

A goddess, or a titan?

What am I to you?

The Broken Buildings Azriah Crawley

The broken buildings, abandoned stairwells that lead to nowhere, no one to ever return.

Street art on the side, with a meaning no one understands.

The broken buildings, secrets are held, not ever to be told.

Memories that are left behind that only the buildings will remember.

The broken buildings, the people who live in them.

Not caring about a single thing but the vintage civilization that no one knows about.

The broken buildings, the screams, the cries, the laughter held with all of the shattered glass that has fell to the ground.

The ghost stories that are told about those places, still seem to make many wonder.

The broken buildings, that run from Market Square to 5th street.

No one wants to tear them down, because of the unforgettable treasure that are held inside.

13 Ways to Look at a Mirror Azriah Crawley

I. Mirrors show a reflection about what we truly see.

It could be true beauty or the hidden truth.

II. As I stare into the eyes of this mirror, I see another pair staring back at me.

Begging for held, but not saying a word.

III. ‘It could break if I touch it’ I thought to myself as I pulled my hand back.

IV. The mirror shows flaws.

Flaws that people see but don’t have.

V. Glass.

That’s all it is.

The mirror is only glass.

VI. They lie without speaking but you can watch how fast they make you believe how you look.

VII. A camera

that doesn’t hold the image.

VIII. Mirror mirror can’t you see what you show Is ruining me?

IX. Broken with shards of glass everywhere.

I touched it and now broken.

X. The small pieces the sharp pieces that lay down.

XI. I can still see the reflection of an unknown girl.

Most likely lost never to be found.

XII. No longer a friend but an enemy.

The mirror has ruined me.

XIII. The shards are gone but the mirror has been replaced.

The images in my mind never to leave.

Lost Memories Azriah Crawley

I am from the dusty bookshelves in the library and the back room with the unmarked books.

From the unknown section of the scrapbooks with the rest of the unrecognizable faces.

I am the girl who no one could remember no matter how hard they tried.

I am from the old converse and the oversized hoodies from cowboy boots and grey leggings.

From the paper hats and wooden swords that caused my imagination to spread like a wild fire.

I come from the sound of crumbled papers to the sight of a broken guitar mounted on the wall.

From the soft lullabies that swept me to sleep to the loud radio statics that would make me smile every time I heard it.

I’m from the land of growing up.

From hearing Peter Pan tell Wendy “We’ll be in Neverland soon’.

To the part about when Alice fell down into the rabbit hole to discover Wonderland.

The path of growing up, unwanted success, and trying to impress which is the path that I am stuck on, never to get off.

I have sailed from the ‘I don’t knows’ and the ‘I don’t care’ from the ‘You’ve grown up so much’ and the ‘Why can’t you be like her?’

I am from the being compared to my sister even though we have 2 different personalities.

I am from the broken picture frames

to the old torn down house.

Which held all of the old memories that I have grown to love but now, there is nothing but a left behind unwanted thoughts of a broken family.

Where I’m From Madeline Ficca

I am from the hot days in Raleigh, with the heat of the sun, a blanket on your back.

I am from the backyard filled with fireflies on a summer night.

I am from the mango colored walls that brightened the room.

I am from the fresh grass, moist under our bare feet.

I am from the auditorium with a cracked ceiling and a wooden stage, with a spotlight glaring into your eyes.

I am from the bookcase full of Madeleine books.

I’m from Italy to West Virginia.

I’m from the carpenters and the singers.

I’m from the Thanksgiving meals, hands all linked in a prayer.

I’m from the twin cats both white with dreamy blue eyes.

I’m from the horsehairs on the bow, and the American Fiddle Method Book 1.

From the grandfather I never met, to the little sister born on June third.

In the photo albums of memories long gone, and the days filled of laughter and love.

The first breath of a new life, A bud blossoming on the tree.

13 Ways of Looking at a Candle Madeline Ficca

I. As the flame is brought to life it begins to dance.

The bottom of the candle is a translucent blue.

The top of the flame is vivid like the awakening yellow and crisp orange of the sun.

The candle is alive.

II. The walls surrounding the radiant flame are melting.

They are weakening.

The wax drips down the sides of the pumpkin orange candle.

The tip of the candle is becoming fragile and weary.

The strength is fading.

III. The lively flame bounces up and down.

The flame stretches tall and then returns to its initial size The pattern repeats.

Again.

Again.

IV. It is a game to keep the flame still.

The slightest breath can make the candle flicker.

I slowly breathe, making sure the light will stay stable.

I focus only on the iridescent flame.

V. The soothing smell drifts into my nose.

It smells like a fall day at a pumpkin patch.

Its smells like a cozy cabin with a crackling fireplace.

VI. It is rooted to the ground.

As the fire travels down the wick it can’t escape the doom drawing closer.

Thoughts frantically rush through its mind.

Unable to move.

The fire draws closer.

VII. the wax walls melts as it trickles down the sides.

A continuously growing puddle grows beneath the flame.

It is a pond reflecting the vibrant flame.

VIII. The candle brightens the dark and empty room.

The candles glisten from the silver and delicate chandelier.

The candles stand out of the birthday cake as someone makes a wish.

IX. It has no control.

No mind.

Just a body.

X. I am falling apart every second.

My crisply burnt wick is decreasing. the walks surrounding me are growing weaker XI. The candle flickers in the pitch black room.

The light shines strong.

It sits boldly on the little wooden table.

XII. A sudden rush of air turns the flame off like a light switch. smoke curls into the air.

The puddle of wax hardens.

Everything is frozen.

XIII. The candle is silenced.

The room is dark.

It is waiting to be awakened back to life.

Skyscrapers and Forests Madeline Ficca

the sun reflects off of the silver skyscraper, blinding me. a single white bird flaps its agile wings rapidly as it moves through the sky. the sound of thunder erupts at a construction sight as wood drops to the ground. a rusty and red tall crane travels up the side of a building carrying a worker. the spikes towering out of the building remind me of a golden crown that sits on a kings head. trucks roar and sirens squeal, but the noise soon fades away into the distance. water on the sidewalk glistens as it reflects the suns golden light.

I can see the cloudy breath escaping from peoples mouths as they breath.

I walk into a small wooden gazebo where I am surrounded by pine trees.

I inhale the fresh smell that reminds of Christmas. as I walk deeper into the spiral I am absorbed into the little forest. bamboo surrounds me everywhere I walk.

I hear birds chirping throughout the trees.

I am in a captivation of nature, yet in this busy city.

I walk out to the bitter smell of cigarette fumes.

dark alleys with only a trail of dimly lit light vanish off into the distance . pitch black smoke spews from a building, blocking my view of the vast blue sky. the frigid cold bites my hands. people stand by a bus stop with a tired and solemn look on their face. everyone has their mind set on something. as I escape from the fumes, the crisp air revives me. the warp of a jet leaves a white streaked path through the sky.

The sun reaches my frozen hands, energizing them. vines grow up the side of brick walls and bright yellow bridges.

Pebbles shuffle around and dusty dirt rises from the ground as I walk.

I look beneath the bridge and see the entrance to a tunnel leading beneath the bridge where I cannot see.

Cars and trucks rush into the darkness of the porthole.

Seemingly gone forever.

Flowers and a Tornado Alison Harvill

I came out of the oak trees and saw a field of flowers before me. The flowers were lilies, poppies, and marigolds that ranged from purples and pinks to yellows. It was gorgeous. I had seen pictures of wildflower fields before, but I had never had the experience of walking in one. I entered the field and breathed in. The scent was amazing! It smelled like every flower-scented candle I had ever smelled.

I decided that this was going to be my new favorite smell. A gentle breeze blew my orange sundress around. I continued to walk around in the field enjoying how beautiful nature could be.

“Why have I never come out to the country before?” I wondered aloud.

I then found a patch of dry grass to lie down upon; all the walking and the scent of the flowers made me tired. The hot sun didn’t help either. I couldn’t help it, I fell asleep easily.

I don’t know how much later I awakened to cold drops of water on my face. How long was I asleep? I concluded that it must have been for a while because the sky had turned from a happy blue to a murky green. The rain had turned to hail. The wind sounded like a train engine bringing me closer and closer to my death, that is, of course, if I read these signs correctly. I was sure I was. What else could a green sky mean? I stood up and quickly found what I was looking for: a nearby hill. I ran to the bottom of the hill and hid in the gully, and prayed to God I would survive this upcoming tornado.

“Why did I ever come out into the country?” I thought.

I wished to be in my safe comfy city home. * * * * * * I had to survive. I just knew it.

I looked up and from where I lay and could see the top of the tornado in the middle of the woods, ripping trees up by their roots. I had some time. I looked over my shoulder

and saw that the gully went on for a while and seemed to lead into some sort of cave. I knew that this was probably my one chance of survival. I army crawled toward the cave.

It was slow going. I had to stop a lot and cover my head with my hands so flying rocks and branches wouldn’t knock me out cold.

I finally reached the cave. When I got there I emptied my pockets looking for something useful. All I had was my car keys. I thought about how stupid I was deciding to leave my phone in the car. I actually said this, “How dangerous could a field of flowers be? I don’t need my phone.”

I had been wrong.

I decided I would run for it. The tornado was in the middle of the field, coming closer. I could see where the trees used to be. They also used to hide my car, but they were now gone. Now I could see the tiny speck of silver that was my car about a mile away. I began running.

In the beginning I stuck to edge of the woods that were still there. But when I got to where the trees used to be, I ran straight to my car.

I was about 20 feet away when a flying branch, which I was so careful to avoid before but now I was ignoring them, hit me in the head and I blacked out.

I assumed I only blacked out for a minute or so because when I woke I could still see the tornado. The only difference was that the tornado was further away. I tried standing, but found I couldn’t. I looked down at my ankle and saw that it was bruised and swollen.

“Great”, I remember thinking. I somehow managed to pull myself up and get to my car. I remember pulling myself into the car and putting in my keys and starting to drive. * * * * * * “That’s how I ended up here,” I explained to the nurse.

“Well you’re very lucky to survive with just a broken ankle, Rose,” she said. “We’ll put the cast on tomorrow and you’ll get crutches. You’ll need the cast on for about 6 weeks.”

“So when will I get to leave?” I asked.

“In about two days,” she replied. “ Great.” I couldn’t wait to get home and write this adventure down. I thought it would be a great story.

Thirteen Ways Of Looking At Water Alison Harvill

I On every map of the world, on every globe, you can see, water.

II Water houses many animals that we do not know of, and scientists are worrying about the animals, and what they are, but they are not looking at what they live in.

III Water came to Earth, and life began.

IV A man is nothing, a woman is nothing, animals are nothing, plants are nothing, without water.

V Is the stillness of a lake, better than the waves of an ocean, or is it the other way around?

VI It must hurt to be water, as you have to fall to the earth as rain, and hit the hard cement.

You also get heated until you are a gas, and cooled until you are ice.

VII When water becomes apart of the ocean, millions of drops of water become one, yet they fight endlessly, creating waves.

VIII To be water means to be immortal.

If I were water I would go through many changes, but these changes would last forever.

One day I would be a cloud, the next a puddle on the side of a road.

It would be a continuous cycle, forever living, never dying.

IX Water has an important role in every season.

What would be Spring if there were no rain showers in April, that would lead us to May flowers?

What would be summer if you didn’t have water for your plants, and water to swim in?

What would be fall without the early snowfall?

What would be winter without all the snow and snow days?

X Water gives us life, yet it also kills us.

Many people have died because they have drowned, and many people have died of lack of water.

Blizzards have also killed people.

Water is a danger, yet it is needed.

XI Water can bring on sadness, or happiness.

Some people get sad when it is raining.

Water is actually comes out of us, when we are sad, and sometimes happy.

XII Many things, besides humans, plants, and animals, rely on water.

Swimming, boating, fishing, skating, and sledding would not exist without water.

XIII Water is delicious, but it is tasteless.

If you to describe water’s taste, the best you could say is that it is refreshing.

Where I’m From Alison Harvill

I am from scrapbooks, of my childhood memories, from glitter and glue, from the view of the street from the craft room window.

I am from the tree in my front yard that has pink blooming flowers in the spring, from the Fourth of July nights spent on the roof,

where we burned sparklers and could still smell the smoke at the end of the night.

I am from puzzles and charcoal, from Cilla and Dan. I am from the visual artists, whose talent seems to have escaped me, but not my sister.

From the not nows and the I love yous.

I am from the rainy city of Seattle, but now I live in a less famous rainy city.

I am from chlorine and from the hot, fun summer days spent at the local pool, where almost all my happy memories are from.

From my grandma who has had cancer twice and survived it both times.

In my house I can see all the things we have changed in the last 10 years we lived there, and the things we still need to change.

I am from the paint on the walls to the dust on the stairs.

I am from all of this.

The Music Box Danielle Jordan

I hopped out of my mom’s run down minivan, and looked at my grandmother’s old Victorian house. The twins jumped out of the car with their matching Dora bags, telling my mom to hurry up. My mom came out of the car holding three big bags of luggage (all of them hers). She handed me the keys to the house and I ran up to unlock the door.

My grandparents had died a year ago and since my mom was the last of their children, they left us each something, including their house. I got a music box but it would not open, no matter how hard I tried. I think my grandmother forgot to give me the key.

As I walked into the house, I half expected something to jump out at me but it was still and quiet. Suddenly I heard the scream of a teakettle and I jumped. Someone came out of a side door and I ran to my mom. Then a man came out of the door, to the outside, and greeted my mom. He was balding at the very tippy top of his head, and he was so pale it looked like he had just seen a ghost or was one.

“Sorry to scare you,” said the strange man. “I did not think that you would be here for another hour.”

“This is Smee,” my mom said. Then Smee went and whispered in my mom’s ear. I could only make out a little bit of their conversation.

“I should not be here,” said Smee.

“I need you to stay,” said mom.

“Remember what happened last time,” said Smee.

“Don’t worry, it is locked. She can’t get in,” said my mom.

“But –“ Smee stared to say.

“No buts,” said my mom. “Come on, let’s go inside.

Girls, come along. We followed her inside.

The house had a strange feel to it. It was dusty and the smell of earl gray tea drifted through the room. There was also a slight smell of death, but I bet it was just my little

imagination and me.

Smee walked into the house with our bags and gave them to a women who was wearing a maid outfit and was also pale like Smee.

“Where did you come from?” I asked the strange lady, but she did not reply. She just kept walking until she was gone.

As Smee lead my mom, the twins and me to our rooms, I took in my new home. There were many long dark hallways that led to unknown rooms. Some of the doors were locked and some of them had signs on them that said, “DO NOT ENTER” or “DANGER KEEP OUT.” The signs were confusing, but my grandfather was a scientist so I was guessing behind those doors were his labs.

Once I got to my room, Smee unlocked it and handed me the key. The room had red paint and red lace curtains.

There was a queen-sized bed with a red and pink comforter in the corner of the room, and a wooden desk in front of a big window that looked out at our huge back yard. After a few minutes, the woman with the bag came in and started to put my clothes away.

“I can do it,” I told her and hopped off my new bed.

She scuffled off and I opened my dresser and started to put away my clothes and take out my makeup. Then I opened my last draw and saw a key with a note on it the note said: This is for that pretty box you have got there.

I looked up at my music box and saw the little lock right where the box opened. “Could it be the key to my music box?” I thought. I fitted the key in and turned it. The music box popped open and I heard a whoosh, then an earsplitting scream. Then the music box started to play lovely music, and I started to drift off. But I came to my senses by the sound of running up the stairs. My mom, Smee, and the strange lady were all in my room at once. My mom slammed the music box closed. She had a worried look on her face. And next I thought, my grandmother didn’t die of old age.

Where I am From Danielle Jordan

I am from the photo albums of my mom young and free hiding in my closet.

From the pirate voice I remember through dreams never letting go.

I am from learning about times before I was a glint in a mother’s eye.

I am from the library of stories waiting to be discovered in a way that they can be remembered.

I am from the paints and markers that make a picture that never comes out just right.

From the beauty of love (Glistening in the shadows bright as day).

The soft sound of Taylor swift singing in the back round, And the stories of princesses and mysteries, dragons and hero’s.

The tulips my mom saw the day before my birth.

I am the feeling of warm air on my tan face to the crisp feel of cold on my rosy cheeks.

The tree in my yard that hides me from watchful eyes, and the introvert and extravert hiding inside me.

I am sleepovers with friends.

I am half-baked ice cream.

And how I met your mother the show that makes me laugh even when I am sad.

I am a sundae for breakfast on Christmas morning And laughter from closed doors that can’t be explored I am from baking in a small kitchen on a rainy Saturday morning.

I am from the gym on Thursday afternoons and the feeling of being air born for a split second.

I am from the rhythm of the dance routine on the hard wooden floor.

I am the feeling of grass beneath my feet.

From my love hate relationship with exercise, And my favorite sweater and shorts on a warm spring day.

I am from hopes and dreams just out of my each.

I am from love.

Enchanted

Danielle Jordan The early morning sun reflecting on the glass of a skyscraper.

Bike racks shaped as thunder clouds, lightning bolts where tires can go.

Trees with beautiful Japanese flowers always in bloom, (but only on of the three is real).

People rushing through crowds, not enjoying the nature in the urban setting.

The crunch of ice beneath my feet.

Imprints of long forgotten warmth, in its cold hands.

The sidewalk flooded with water, smooth, and still Cold as ice.

Shops and buildings growing adding more to the fog and less to the great outdoors.

The tall bridge covered in frost.

The crisp air on my face, after walking out of a heated school building.

Trying not to talk.

Wanting to show the ice coming out of the fountain to my class.

Eyes watching me from the sculpted chairs.

Starbucks cups in people’s cold hands,

and cigarette smoke filling my nostrils making me gag.

The city is enchanting even though the masterpiece has some smudges.

Thirteen Thunderstorms Natalie Kocherzat

I. Swift and gentle.

Soft water dropping to splash concrete city below.

II. Yet sharp bullets of the skies.

Piercing anything that dares to get in its way.

III. Dancing to the sound of the thunder wafting up.

A never ending beat of life.

Pounding its self along the hard ground.

IV. Shadowed spears fall from the sky.

Creating fear in the enemy’s eyes. All who loath run away, while those who like stay and play.

V. Pooling in the ground, they keep coming.

None will ever be stopped.

None will ever be defeated.

They keep coming, flooding the grounds. most now run for shelter.

VI.

Now all mighty, fear has taken the rest. Long blue streaks paint the sky. The yellow cackles making a sight of colors.

A sight to be awed at.

VII. We now own the night, hoping it to never end.

VIII. Giving life in this mistaken earth.

Drowning life in this mistaken earth.

IX. Now leaving.

It left its mark on old rusted cars.

The trees dwindling leaves. never to be forgotten, yet never to be free.

X. Seemingly gone, but isn’t.

Still lasting in the crevices and ditches from nature, or man-made.

XI. After it has poured from the sky, taking its place, is a red and blue streak. many more colors too.

XII. You thought it was bad, but now glorious it seems.

Leaving behind this whimsical masterpiece.

XIII. it had been fun while the rain was there. but now the sun is shining, and it will shine. All day today, and all day tomorrow.

The remains, however, are everlasting.

Where I’m from Natalie Kocherzat

I am from the cheesy smell of peirogi, emanating through the house I am from the cookies and goods that live there too. I am from the people talking to you, preventing you from doing the bad do’s, and the people who get things to you.

I am from the finding of an ingredient.

I’m from the tinkling piano and the strumming guitar, notes dancing off the walls creating life and joy in this solemn world.

I’m from over the ocean, way up far.

I am from the taste of beef and

broccoli, mixed with sauced rice.

I am from the old red building in the North, the one that tried to teach me math. making life easier I guess if I ever use it, that is.

I’m from lazy Sunday evenings at home, with Gilligan’s Island and The Twilight Zone, old westerns sounding throughout the house.

I’m from central PA, with many braches going back.

I’m from many people, some I did not know well, snapped branches who only ever live in our mind.

I’m from the stretch across the world, where many have been lost in memories. before my time of blooming, only remembered when tales are told. creating life once more.

Where I’m From Madison Kyle

I am from the crowded, holiday get-togethers, from the far-away family, and the Please Don’t Leave Agains.

I am from the snow-white snapdragons planted outside the window, and the tree that once provided shade to a four-year-old me, where a dry grassless patch marks its place.

I am from the humid summer nights, and the next day’s mosquito bites.

From homemade sweet popcorn and rollercoasters.

From the water slides and haunted houses momma loves.

I am from the dusty old guitar given by my grandpa, whose arms I can still remember returning my tight hugs.

I am from the Get Aggressives! and the Do It Nows! from hiking in the woods, the red tipped thorns that inevitably pierce hands.

I am from the old polaroid pictures with people I don’t remember, whom others will never forget.

I am from I Told You So. and You Should Have Listened, from lessons taught by mistakes.

I am from the surgeries and stitches, from hospital’s sanitizer smell.

I am from the crowded, black and gold streets of a Steeler game, I am from the green fields and mud on my cleats, and the high tops screeching on wooden courts.

I am from the saltwater smell of California fishing, from star gazing and the sound of waves hitting sand.

I am from Christine and John, a school teacher and a waitress, together from a bond of love.

I am a sprouting bud beginning to open from the family tree.

Where

Madison Kyle Our footsteps on red brick roads, a river right beside us.

We travel yellow bridges and to skyscrapers, standing tall, an image of beauty.

A great city we love.

A whirl of puffing smoke wraps around a building as if it were strangling it.

Light shines through clouds bringing hope and warmth to the whipping wind that reddens noses.

The artificial nature brings a sense of peace.

Serenity filling the air.

The metal, dainty like the wing of a butterfly.

Pink blossoms, black bark.

Vines, intertwined with the fences, covering old stone buildings, brown and crisp.

Eaten by the frost.

The river rises high to greet us.

It submerges the tips of shoes, providing geese easy passage to dock along the sidewalk.

The bridge and birds alike with their strong reflection on the waters.

The people and bridge, and the bird and city alike.

Together and proud and brave.

A strong reflection of our community.

I am completely city bound.

Where I can lose myself in the hot Pittsburgh summers.

Where city, where nature, and where family is.

Where life, where community, and where love is.

Where home is, Pittsburgh.

This and That Nadia Laswad

The skyscrapers surround me high in the dull blue clouds.

The trees’ leaves are gone, the sunshine is too shy, it are a cold, breezy day, gloomy like a winter night.

Cars are everywhere like a circus parade.

The river is an icy body, a dead water and lifeless.

To my surprise, I see geese, dark golden brown.

“Why would Geese be here in a weather like this?”

I wonder.

I think they could just flap like a flag as the winds go by.

The sidewalk next to the river is covered in water as if it is flooded.

People around listening to music while waiting for public busses, calling, talking on their phones, everything here is hectic.

Everyone walking and stepping on the ice That is now forever crushed into little pieces.

Nothing seems to be inspiring.

Nothing stands out before my eyes.

Buildings and skyscrapers aren’t my type.

Nature is more like a dream world.

The trees that grow so bloomy; the grass that hugs the dewy roses. the animals that are wild and set free.

Nature is compelling in its own peaceful way.

But the city is loud and busy all day.

One nurtures your soul,

with beauty and peace, another feeds your mind with so much tension.

The Sun

Nadia Laswad 1.

The sun is shining bright like a shooting star.

2.

A yellow sun in a radiant sky, a masterpiece that catches the eye.

3.

The sun is the sun.

It shines upon a rainbow.

4.

The sky and the sun is mother holding daughter.

5.

As a storm is approaching, a dark sky is taking over.

Everything hides, the birds, clouds, and the sun.

6.

No longer is there darkness, there’s light.

The sun is appearing

and the birds are chirping again.

The dewy flowers are blooming, and life is starting over.

7.

The sun is the queen of summer.

The season of light; my favorite season ever.

8.

The hotness of the sun, evaporates the water, keeping us alive, and benefits the Earth.

9.

Sunset is near, slowly coming.

Getting dark.

10.

Day after day, the sun rises up and down.

11.

The sun’s rays sparkle my eyes and gives me an inspiration for beauty.

12.

Weather changes, the sun sleeps,

and wakes up in gleaming light.

13.

In the morning, the sun is exposing its light through my window as my alarm.

Where I’m From Nadia Laswad

I am from the family that keeps me awake, from Tide to chores.

I am from a pile of books that are waiting for me.

I am from the food Kabsa the scent is so dreamy to me.

Eat it almost everyday so delicious!

I’m from school and homework from laziness and tiredness.

I’m from the work which makes me dizzy, so dizzy its like I’m spinning 15 times From Get up! and School Work!

I’m from the Mosque where I pray almost five times a day.

I’m from watching TV and having a blast, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate in my living room.

In my mom’s room, I found a box.

It held a lot of memories of me and my family, lots of pictures, some are blurry just like an empty mind, and I am glad I was part of the family, the family that kept me awake.

What If?

Julia McQuiston Down Town.

Rivers as brown as mud Bridges as dirty as the sidewalk you walk on.

Construction sites as smelly as Wendy’s.

Restaurants as bad as the chewed gum suck on the them.

Benches as germy as the germs them self.

Stadiums as busy Mad Mex on a Friday.

Lights as dual as homework.

People as busy as bees in a beehive.

Fountains spraying enough water to make a swimming pool.

But what if.

What if down town was not like that.

What if the river glistened like the sun.

The bridges were as clean as clothes that just got out of the wash.

Construction sites as unnoticeable as a ant.

Restaurants as delicious as home made meals.

Benches as welcoming as you own home.

Stadiums as quite as a mouse.

Lights as bright as the sun.

People as calm as if they were getting ready to go to bed.

Fountains as big and save as your own home.

What if.

13 Ways To Look At The Sky Amanda Mitchell

I. Clouds are drifting by with endless blue behind them.

II. Little bits of white cotton candy are floating by, and a big blue mouth is behind them ready to eat.

III. When the sun sets the sky is a mixture of colors.

Blues, pinks, yellows, and oranges.

Then it starts to become black and it becomes crowded with stars.

IV. Holes filled with light are poking through the darkness.

V. In the morning it’s back to blue, with only the sun.

It is empty without the clouds.

VI. The sky becomes green.

Gray clouds then start to cover the sky as a warning that a storm is about to start.

VII. Tears are falling from the sky, it is sad.

But it still has the warmth and comfort from the clouds.

VIII. Clouds are covering the sky and you can’t see the blue that everyone loves.

IX. The sky is above of us all, it is ruling us.

It tells us when to wake up and when to go to bed.

X. Rain, snow, hail, and sleet.

They descend to the ground.

It is a place where weather starts.

XI. When you look up, it feels like a dream.

You can imagine anything and let your mind go anywhere, just by simply looking at the sky.

XII. The clouds are passing by slowly as the sky stays the same.

This makes it peaceful and makes you want to look at it all day.

XIII. Never noticed.

The sky isn’t appreciated like it should be.

People are walking but they don’t look up, they don’t pay attention to the thing that makes up our whole world.

Where I’m From Amanda Mitchell

I am from the music echoing in the halls, from dancing around the house.

I am from the useless garden in the backyard, From the pink and yellow flowers that never get watered, I am from the dirt-covered seeds that never sprouted.

I am from playing kickball in the backyard, from the dirt stains on my shirts.

I am from stepping on the blackberries that leave purple stains on the bottom of my feet.

I’m from the Get that done! and Make sure it’s finished first!

I am from hating mosquito bites, from not wanting to camp outside.

I am from having wars in the hall with my brother, and losing all the darts in different rooms.

I am from running out of darts and not being able to fight back.

From the family that wants to clean, but never does.

I am from the endless photo albums stacked on a shelf in the last room of the hall.

I am soon going to be added to those photo albums, I’ll be another memory lost in the photos at the end of the hall.

Gold Beneath Steel Stevie Perekiszka

Gold beneath steel.

The clash of technology and nature, somehow together in perfect harmony.

A robin’s daily routine undisturbed by the urban bustle.

This robin doesn’t mind the people.

Every now and then someone will even give the bird some seed or breadcrumb.

Nature made dew glistening on the man made building.

Getting along quite well in each other’s company.

Yet some of nature’s beings aren’t enjoying technology’s company.

A mighty oak swaying in the wind confined to only a couple feet of space, was fine being left alone.

Yet it doesn’t mind a hug every now and then.

A building with a fine layer of soot on it hinting Pittsburgh’s past.

People, one of nature’s species, are coming to love the urban life.

Some would even pick jogging around the city rater than a park or forest.

Oh yes this steel city has grown on them.

A rotted tree stump smelling of fresh moss, showing natures sacrifice for the city’s lifestyle.

Give and take.

That’s all the clash of nature and technology is.

Yet, if you look hard you’ll find some unexpected treasures beneath the urban jungle.

13 Ways of Looking at a Dog Stevie Perekiszka

1 Dogs. Always desperate for attention.

Begging for just a bite of that steaming hamburger, its eyes like glass staring right through you.

Asking for it or maybe understanding and trying to tell you its no good for you.

Willing to sacrifice its health for yours.

2 Dogs always barking.

Maybe just to annoy us, or maybe to warn us about the will o wisp.

Unseen by humans.

3 Puppies are a piece of clay.

Your feeling, emotions, and personality mold them.

If you look hard enough their just like you.

4 Dogs are like that annoying little sibling.

Always copying what you’re trying to do.

You can tell them to stop but keep in mind they admire you.

5 There are no bad dogs there are bad owners.

6 No dog is better then another because out of all the breeds of dogs

there are no races.

7 “Aggressive� dogs on the street barking at the person trying to take them in.

Maybe out of hatred or maybe not wanting to be a burden upon that person.

8 Dogs can be bold oxen or timid as a fox , bold for you but sheepish for their self.

9 It takes a split second for a dog to love you, But an eternity for you to get to know it.

10 Dogs can be thought of as a dumb creature but have a thought process more elegant than a man.

11 Whether you love a dog Or hate it it will always love you.

12 Dogs have a usually Grace and loyalness that another creature simply cannot mimic.

13 Through a dog’s wet, cold nose is a warm heart.

Where I’m From Cameron Watts

I am from the army of ants that crawl all around and steal your goodies.

I am from the Italian man who makes spaghetti, you know, with the pasta and meat.

I am from the bold letters on the top of the screen black ice . . . black ice . . . as I continue to type on.

I am from the mist of evil plans like the town of evil clones.

I am from the twon of that and that or should I say the words you often ignore.

I am from the icky purple gooey monster in your closet that creeps and stares at you in your sleep.

I am from the dark knight with a bloody sword with scars over my face.

I am from the thing that goes tick…tock…tick…tock right on the dock.

I am from the mysterious thing that’s just point blank like no pen or penscl on a blank piece of paper.

I am like no other; I’ll even scratch the chalkboard with all I got.

This is where I’m from.

13 Ways of Looking at a Goldfish Lily Weatherford-Brown

I Among the seas of cool, tropical, water, tinted green the most beautiful thing was the flutter of a goldfish fin, in the hot, ocean sun.

II I was mesmerized like a trance in which there are hundreds of swimming goldfish, circling me in a cyclone of glimmer.

III The goldfish fluttered in the soft waves of the ocean.

It was a small part of the submarine world.

It eats, and is eaten.

IV A man and a woman are entranced, into each other’s minds.

A man, and a woman, and a goldfish, are also entranced.

V I do not know which to prefer, the beauty of dance, of the soft, swirling fabric of a fish fin. or the beauty of innuendoes.

The goldfish in dance, or just after.

VI Algae lined the tank with a sickening green goo.

It blocked the window to the sky above.

The shimmer of the goldfish broke it’s shell of emerald.

The mood traced in sunshine an indescribable cause.

VII O thin men of the world why do you seek out these tropical fish?

Do you not see how the goldfish captivates the minds of the people about you?

VIII I know beauty, and shimmering golden stones of indescribable lust, I even know of soft foreign fabrics that flow like water; but I know, too, that the goldfish is involved in what I know.

IX When the goldfish swam out of sight he marked the edge of one of many pathways, down into the depths of the sea.

X At the sight of goldfish flowing in the fresh blue water, It’s scales shimmering, and it’s soft flowing tail wrapped around it like a cloak; even the bawds of sound would cry out sharply.

XI She rode through the sea in an invisible coach

Once, a fear pierced her heart, in that she mistook the shadow of her fellows for great monsters of the sea.

Monsters that could gulp her down in one bite.

XII The water is shining, the goldfish must be there.

Or a barracuda.

XIII It was musty all afternoon.

It was raining and it was going to rain.

The goldfish sat in the shadow of his fellows, safe.

Where I’m From

Lily Weatherford-Brown (In emulation of “Where I’m From” By George Ella Lyon) I am from rows of dusty, old books.

From pretending and games.

I am from hand-made nests I built.

From mower clippings and long grass I pulled, roots and all.

The special call I made for the Wickapee.

(The mispronounced version of chickadee.)

I am from the light blond daffodils, the color of my hair, And the young, red Japanese maple.

Those soft young plants, still blooming with fresh new buds I’m from ancient recipes,

In 1900’s pricing.

From Martha and Ronnie.

I’m from the Christians, and the seamstress.

From Yall! and Hush!

I’m from the fishing line, in the small motor boat, and fresh fish I caught for supper.

I am from the naval man, and the soft, even, stitches of my grandma.

I’m from Kay and Danny’s branch on our tree.

Homemade treats and southern cooking.

Sizzling onions and sweet, spicy smells hanging in the air like fog on a hot and sticky day.

From the back my grandfather broke lifting machines, and the sweet smile my grandma flashes every day.

From the long branch on that side of my tree that grows in a million directions.

Every year I see them. sometimes twice, If I’m lucky.

A wave of distant faces all greeting me.

And remembrance of those I’ve lost.

Snapped from our line before my time.

A branch cracking.

Only memories float around now, like leaves in a tornado.

Gone, but never forgotten.

13 Ways of Looking at a Bald Eagle Anika Weber

1.

The eagle’s deep, gold eyes stare at me, and I attempt to stare back, but fear rushes down my spine and I look back down at my shoes.

2.

Why do most see the eagle, as just America’s symbol, but not the large, strong birds they really are?

3.

I must wait five years, to see the young change, from young to adult.

I see the head change from brown to white.

4.

The male struggles to fill the stomachs of his young, for they are always hungry.

5.

As the bright sun sets, the eagles dream of feeling the wind on there faces in the warm, sweet sun.

6.

The fish swims hopelessly to not become dinner,

but he doesn’t swim fast enough and soon the dish is impaled by the male’s thick talons.

7.

Do eagles think all the time, or just once in there life?

Or do they think like us?

And if so, what about?

8.

I see the mother sit for days, and she is very patient.

She depends on her mate to care for the entire family.

She is very brave.

9.

Listening to the screeches reminds me more of not a predator, but more of the prey.

10.

When I notice one egg is left, I begin to worry.

The other could crack or be stolen by a raccoon.

Why is life cruel to the eagle?

11.

The time comes, when the egg hatches.

The egg cracks slowly but eventually opens.

12.

I see the eagles live,

I feel their sorrow and joy, I taste their salty meals, I smell the air they fly in, and I hear their screeches.

13.

Surely the eagle thinks just like a human.

They dream and care.

For the last time, they are not just our symbol.

Where I am From Anika Weber

I am from a cold, clear lake, where fish swim and splash, and deer take few sips of water.

I am from a large, green park, where small kids would play, and pigeons thrived.

I am from a small room downstairs, where bands would play.

I am from an old tree outside, a tree kids would hang from.

I am from a small trampoline, that I would put my small dogs on, and hope they would jump.

I am from a garden plot.

While my mother grows peppers, I look for hummingbirds.

I am from the windy mountains.

That is where I dream of living.

I am from hands.

Two that cared for me, my parents, And two that inspired, Sam and Colebert, I am from the birder’s brain.

That is where I am from.

From The Seagulls’ Views Anika Weber

The cold wind has no effect on the bright white seagulls that look over our busy city.

They fly, silent like a ghost even in the coldest weather.

They see the dark blue river where the geese swim free and the boats move quickly, sometimes, to quick to notice a large, hungry, blue heron.

They see the buildings, that humans go in and out of, where pigeons make nests out of the garbage that is thrown onto the streets.

They see the dark, murky river, that looks almost bottomless.

The only thing that lives in it, are the small, grey fish that are consumed by the gulls.

They see the people,

most with suits or dresses but don’t the gulls wonder, where are the beaks and feathers?

Why don’t they just fly?

The seagulls watch us, as they eat the leftovers we drop, I question them.

Why are you here in December, when it’s warmer at your sandy beach?

She

Chloe Werner

She was running. Running fast. The ground slipped by under her feet at an unimaginable speed. Her breathing was labored, fast and hard in her rising chest. Chilly wind whipped against her cheeks, screaming and whistling, and they ached with cold. It hurt to breathe in, it hurt to breathe out, frigid air burning against her throat. She was being chased. By what, she didn’t know. Something told her she’d been running for some time. She was sure she had. Her chest was hurting her badly.

She had a sudden and urgent desire to stop. To know where she was. She slowed to a halt. The wind instantly stopped, and she knew it was her speed that had made it.

“Who am I?” she wondered. She realized it wasn’t a desperate wonder. She didn’t need to know.

She looked about. She was in a wood, a very dark one, with large trees. They were huge and round, and thick green vines hung from their branches. A small breeze picked up, and the ivy swayed somewhat. Far, far away, something howled. A long, lonesome howl, filled with the sound of blood and death and a longing to kill. Her insides curdled, but not as much as they should have. She wanted to lean against a tree, but she knew it was no use.

“Why is it no use?” she thought. “Who am I?” And she suddenly wanted, very badly, to know.

She heard sobbing. Deep, heavy sobbing. She listened, washed away in the sound of it, the sadness and horror.

“Brittany,” someone said in a shrill voice. It cackled, high and triumphant. Somebody was coming. She covered her eyes, knowing she didn’t want to see it. She could see through her hands. She screamed, and fell into blackness. ***

She was in a large room, a long nightdress hanging limply against her ankles. Every inch of the room was

covered in dust, from the hangings on the bed, to the gold framing the mirror. The carpet let loose clouds of dust whenever she moved, and it rose gently into the air.

She went to the window, hoping for sunlight. The room was completely gray and white, and it was getting depressing. There were long drapes in front of the windows (it was evidently a fine room), but she went right through them. Outside, a courtyard of dry grass with evenly planted dead trees lay, widespread.

She heard footsteps. They were fast, deadly footsteps, seemingly filled with evil meaning. They were coming closer to the door. She turned to face them.

There was a swift knock, and the door opened. A tall, slender young man swept into the room, a long black cloak dangling from his right shoulder. His skin was deathly pale, his eyes fiery purple, and his hair raven-black and neatly slicked back. He smiled, and his teeth were pointed and covered in blood.

“Hello,” said the vampire.

“Who are you?” she asked, pulling away.

“Why, you know me,” he said. “Or have you gone back into that dratted gravestone again?”

“What gravestone?” she asked, panic rising in her voice. She started screaming, and fell into blackness.

She stood in the pitch dark. A howling wind was blowing, tossing her nightdress around her. A wound gaped open in her chest. A steady, slow voice spoke to her out of the darkness. “You have forgotten, Brittany,” it said. “You are Brittany.”

“What?” she asked nervously, spinning in a circle, looking for the unknown speaker.

“You forgot your friends.”

“I have no friends!”

“Yes you do. The vampire, the hag, and me. You forgot what you did, also.”

“What I did?”

“Yes. You killed your brother. So you were killed. Have

you ever wondered about the wound on your chest?”

“I don’t believe you,” she said, sinking to the ground.

“And you forget, you forget everything, whenever you go into your gravestone. You are a ghost, Brittany, you are a ghost.”

“I believe you!” she screamed. She did. She started to cry. “I’m going to heaven, right now.”

“Don’t cry, Brittany, don’t cry. All’s well, my love. All is very well. You couldn’t go to heaven, Brittany. You can only go to the netherworld.”

“The netherworld!”

“But you can’t go there, either, Brittany, because I want you to go to sleep.”

“I can’t die again!”

“Goodnight, Brittany,” the voice said, and laughed.

Brittany screamed, and fell into a darker darkness than ever before.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Clarinet Chloe Werner

1) Smooth black wood, almost dark, almost imposing, has found it’s savior in shiny metal keys catching the sun’s gift through my window.

2) As woody as a knothole, as soft as a gentle wind on a summery night, turning as harsh and pointed as a drunk’s slap.

Always with a song sweeter than a goldfinch’s tune.

3)

A swaying bridge between the modern world and truth, song, and the endless sea of emotion.

4) A bringer of ‘No,’ ‘No practice,’ ‘No more time on these scales.’

Every day a new fifteen minutes, trapped with nothing to do but blow into the African Hardwood mouthpiece.

5) With a sound strong and colorful, and pieces starless-night black, call your eyes and ears poor and luckless souls, you who has never seen or heard it.

6) Play a trumpet, loud, metallic sound with it shooting notes high.

Play a flute, soft sounds, so delicate you’re afraid they might break.

Stroke a horsehair bow over a violin’s finely arranged strings.

And I shall blow perfection out of the clarinets bell.

7) Mozart loved the heart-throbbing melody the clarinet sings.

Need one slave over the meaning behind this statement?

8) It can be broken into sixths: A mouthpiece, a barrel, an upper joint, a lower joint, and a bell.

And whenever it is my heart shatters into millionths.

Yet when these pieces are joined together, the millionths become one whole.

9) Fredrick Nietzsche once proclaimed, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Without the clarinet, music would never reach a form true enough to make something a mistake without it.

10) You call it exquisiteness, I shall call it second octave B flat.

11) The notes dance on the page for everybody.

For me, they cavort all the more when I play the first note, And by the time it’s over, they have had such a frolic, I wonder why they aren’t collapsed in exhaustion against the treble cleft.

The notes dance on the page for everybody who plays the clarinet.

12) Some things have a life of their own.

They rise themselves from a soft bed, get ready for the coming day, do their part, clean up after it’s all over, and then sink back into sleep.

A clarinet does that.

13) When notes fall from the clarinet, It is like a warm Spring rain, falling from a blue sky, landing on a tulip’s petal, sliding off onto the forest green leaf, catching the sunlight, reflecting glory.

And I am like a sponge in that rain,

Soaking up the music until it puddles up around me, And then I let myself drown in it.

Grade 7

Alice’s Adventures in the Real World Maddie Figas

I woke up drowsy in my bed with my family gathered around me.

“Where were you poor Alice?

Did you get yourself hurt?”

Simply, I replied, “No.” With this mother exclaimed, “Where did you go?”

“What did you do?”

I wish I hadn’t told about what I did that day.

But poor Alice.

Stupid Alice it wasn’t really real.

And yet I told about the disappearing cat and the talking rabbits.

I spoke about the hatter who was mad and the magic cakes I ate.

And when I finished through and through there was, a painful silence.

My sisters began to giggle, my mother began to cry.

Yet I was sure of what I saw.

In the days that followed doctors came pocking and prodding asking many questions.

And yet poor Alice, stupid Alice I told them what I saw, fighting cards and giant dogs.

If only I had known what they would do to me,

I would have lied I would have said that it was all a dream.

They took me from my home to a hospital far away.

They did some thing, some awful things and they told me I was mad.

Yet poor Alice stupid Alice I told them what I saw.

The flying creatures and wise old caterpillars.

If only I had known, Poor Alice stupid Alice you could have stayed at home.

A Strange Street Sign Maddie Figas

A green street sign with the name, Carson looks strange.

Boys down the road wearing school uniforms screech about how Seabrook paper is the, cheapest.

The streets are clustered with quaint, clean, flower shops, book stores, and small movie theaters that have neon signs advertising, Jurassic Park.

The green street sign with the name, Carson looks

strange.

Further down parents hunch on shiny metal benches solving the daily riddle, while children sway from monkey bars and play Hide and Go Seek.

Dogs in vests prance with pride their tongue’s, drooping out of the side of their mouths barking at the skate boarders.

The street sign with the name, Carson is chipped in a small area on the right corner.

Under the chip there is rust and suddenly you realize, the whole sign is bumpy.

So you pick at the dark green paint and find more rust and you realize it is all covered in rust.

Only then do you understand that the whole town is rust, but you don’t stop picking at the green, because you know that someone will just come and paint over it.

Treasures Laura Kelly

On the sunny shores of Tampa Bay, the blue water is filled with hundreds of people battling against the waves, and the sand is so white that it burns your eyes.

On the scorching shores of Tampa Bay, Small hands rummage through the blue water, looking for the ghost of what was once an oyster with a shining pearl hidden inside, Before the tide whisks it away again.

Bright eyes squint with determination and the little girl dives beneath the blue to grasp onto the shell, smooth as the cloudless sky, ridges like the sand dunes, hard as the sun burning their pale backs.

And when they finally manage to pry a clam from the soft sands, they sprint as fast as their legs can take them to show it to their mother who is tanning and reading through her sunglasses up shore, because in their mind the tiny treasure is worth more than all of the pirate gold in the world combined.

On the sands of Tampa Bay you can see children

running bare-foot across the beach.

Small hands digging through salty waters but the small, smooth treasure slips out of their fingers and into the crashing waves.

The shells smell of salt water and ice cream and sand and purple plastic buckets and boardwalks coated with sea-gull poop.

On a crowded airplane, tan fingers trace the whites and browns and oranges.

Tan fingers will choose their favorite shell and place them on a mantel, next to snow globes and key chains that you had bought from past travels but you know that the small traveler has traveled the length of the sea and back before sitting on your shelf and collecting dust until one day you take it down and turn it over in your slightly bigger hands and remember Tampa Bay.

An Ode to Warmth Laura Kelly

I’ve never been fond of the cold.

When you step out your front door and feel the cold wind pushing against you, stinging your face and painting your nose and cheeks a light pink as you squint your eyes but they still get

watery.

When you shuffle down the sidewalk because the warm, bursting colors of spring and summer Have been iced over by mellow whites and greys for a permanent 4 months and all you feel is the bitterness that fills you when everything begins to melt and another blizzard hits.

When the snow and the rain constantly joust and fight for control, Filling the roads and sidewalks with dirty slush, causing every car, bus, and truck to drive slower and slower and slower to avoid the frequent mishaps.

Temperature has reached below 0. Accident on Route 79, traffic is backed up to the Parkway, delay will be a good 45 minutes, folks, so remember to buckle up and try to stay warm.

I hate how my hands spontaneously become dry and red and wrinkly, And people who happen to notice, look at them in repugnance and tell me to put on some lotion.

The world moves cautiously, with tired, timid steps, Always inside to guard us from the cosmic cold and the snow prancing across the sky and sharpness of the people suffocated under layers of wool and cotton for their morning commutes.

I miss being able to walk to the park without having to grab a winter coat, or any coat, for that matter.

The soft brush of the grass under my bare feet, playing outside until the sun starts to dip behind the green trees, the first leap into the cool, blue, pool water, the rush of the wind through your hair as you plummet down the highest slope of the rollercoaster.

After all, the only good part of winter is after being hindered for what seems like eternity, A small stem begins to sprout through the wet grass where the snow has finally melted.

Saturday Mornings Thalia King

Saturday mornings are spent sitting on my dirty couch in my favorite kiwi patterned socks, flipping through Netflix channels and watching whatever looks interesting.

When I do have to leave my safe haven, I do it bundled up, adoring the way my breath freezes and falls, shattering into a million pieces on the pavement.

My brain capacity is a hotel with no vacancy on Saturday mornings.

The Definition of Unique Thalia King

I am not a stereotype or typical popular person.

Their idea of terror is when their phone isn’t in their pocket, or when some awful driver splashes their brand-new

UGG boots with mud.

My idea of terror is when my homework is on the table at home the day it’s due.

But I care about other things.

My life doesn’t focus solely on schoolwork.

I focus on what I think matters.

I don’t care about the lives of fictional TV characters or celebrities.

I care about who I am, not how others see me.

In short, not having an Instagram doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.

If you were to take everyone in the world and mix them together, you would get someone totally new, someone who has never existed until then and someone who will never exist again.

That person could be me. but it could just as well be anybody else.

If we are all unique, won’t the universe eventually run out of ideas and start all over again?

For the meantime, there is no one else out there like me. So I have learned to enjoy it.

Lunch lady to manager: Thalia King

Before you deny me the raise I requested, I want you to go out there and serve food for ungrateful little sea urchins all day without getting so much as a thank you.

I want you to be in my shoes. Go out there and live my life and if you don’t come crawling back on your hands and knees, begging me to give you a raise, then I will go straight to the Department Of Food Sanitation or whatever it’s called and I will quit my job. Then you can hire someone who actually cares, someone who will accept whatever measly amount

of money you will pay them for the opportunity to serve unidentifiable meat to a bunch of gross kids who will just walk away with a look of terror on their faces and ignore any conversation you try to make with them.

You sit here in your pristine office, with your secretaries to wait on you, hand and foot, and your air-conditioned room while I stand behind a pile of steaming glop, sweating buckets.

I suppose I should feel honored, I mean not everybody gets the chance to hang out with cute little dolls all day. I bet I should be grateful for this opportunity. Who knows? You might turn your back one minute and then people are lining up for my job because it’s so great and who wouldn’t want it and I’m so lucky Yeah, right.

Don’t make me laugh.

How to Break Promises with Seven Easy Steps Lexy Lott

If you had kept all your promises as a child you wouldn’t have picked the little scab on the back of your wrist but being blood brothers with Andrew-who-lived-down-the-street was more important.

If you’d kept your promises You wouldn’t have stayed up all night watching Beetlejuice over and over wondering how to spell his wonky name.

But You didn’t keep your promises You snatched your sister’s underwear. You were sure they’d make a magnificent parachute for your plastic green army men They didn’t.

If you’d kept your promises

you wouldn’t have been scolded for and and and

soaring soaring soaring soaring

down Ilion Street towards the pothole into the air right into

your neighbor’s garage on your brother’s bicycle.

Keeping your promises would have been the respectable, responsible thing to do but responsible is only fun-ish Yeah, sure, if you’d kept your promises, your mother’s apron wouldn’t be outside on the windowsill of your tree house slowly ruffling like a flag on a not-so-windy day.

She needed a new one anyway.

You wouldn’t have woken your baby sister so you could try to fit her in the dishwasher if you’d kept your promises.

She didn’t fit.

So it all worked out just fine.

You wouldn’t have bolted away

from your home because you wanted to go live on the farm with your Mammy and Pop where they ride Bucky the horse and milk Susan the cow and watch the silently bright sun bubble up from behind the green.

You didn’t get far.

Your older sister found you half a mile down the road resting a long branch with a picnic blanket pouch tied on the end on your shoulder.

You were marching quite proudly in the wrong direction.

The memory of it all is burnt on the back of your skull that terrifying excitement of un-swearing what you swore.

If you had kept your promises you would sit in your room with your homework and your chores all finished.

The fresh scent of

perfect cleanness constantly floating through your room.

No wrinkled T-shirts or last-minute book reports.

You’d be having fun-ish.

But fun-ish isn’t fun enough.

So you went out and you broke your promises.

And everything turned out fineish.

Echoing Lexy Lott

I’m a bouncy ball.

Go ahead and launch me down as hard as you can.

I’ll spring right back up.

But that doesn’t mean I’m a toy. You can’t use me for the fun of it then throw me under your bed and forget about me for a few years.

I’m not a piece of bubble gum, so then why do you think you can chew me up and spit me out?

I’m an iced-over lake.

Of course I’ll do my best to support you, but don’t stomp too hard.

And never be afraid to skate.

Sometimes I feel like a mime.

Just because you can’t see the box I’m trapped in doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I’m not going to desert you, because I know what that feels like.

I won’t let you jump without a parachute or ride without a helmet.

I’m not your diary.

Sure, tell me all your hopes and dreams, I’ll listen.

But you can’t expect to get away without listening to mine.

I want to be your net, but you’re making it quite difficult.

I’m not going to catch you when you fall if you continuously push me away, because eventually I won’t be able to reach you.

I won’t leave you in the dark, but you have to tell me you can’t see.

Call out for me.

I won’t leave your voice echoing on and on and on and on and on.

Dear Axxess C.G Marchl

Careful etches like a saw, cut open doors day to day.

Mine suspended by a candy cane rope, a tarnished ring, engraved with numbers and letters. How do I know what that means?

Your company’s name is Axxess, is that supposed to be punny?

I’m not giggling.

Dear Axxess, clearly you haven’t noticed, we’ve been bustling with only metallic fingerprints to open our doors.

You haven’t noticed we’ve been walking with piercing jingle bells in our bags, that drive tabbies under pillows and blankets.

Keys are like diaries, I’m one misplace away from every Julia, Pablo, Robert, Laura, Betsy, Peter, Will, and Elizabeth from knowing what guilt I store in my palace.

I have a suggestion:

Mind making your keys out of something that sticks to me, maybe something that makes them harder to lose?

A Matrix of Time C. G. Marchl

I’ve always considered, what would’ve happened, if I had been born in Virginia instead of Carolina.

Rethinking the past is ridiculous, a riddle none of us can solve.

You can’t hop into gleaming time machines, and revisit years of toddlers and teens or tell your past self to forgive and keep going.

And you can’t go back, and fix your favorite jacket that you spilled neon Dip ‘N Dots on.

Because humanity isn’t a “Matrix inspired” film, that was slapped at the box office, and critiqued by internet nomads, who slouch

behind screens with a salad of sarcastic comments.

Shoulds and shouldnts are pesky wrinkles, that once achieved can never be returned.

Hiding them seems like rolling down Easy Street, but it’s more like being stuck on Shady Ave. I’ve always considered, what would’ve happened, if no one had invented the refrigerator.

Winter Routines C.G Marchl

Wrapped in a red and blue cocoon for warmth, my face pokes out. Millimeters away, blank walls stare back.

Cold clinches my nose, crawl back asleep.

Gasping, guzzling a muffin down.

Dishes pile in the sink, a handful of what was once alive, a sponge, bizarre.

Boots crunch in the snow, shuffling up “salted sidewalks,� heels skidding like rollerblades.

Arrive, bus 13.

Flora Raising a Child All Alone Delia Petrus

I had no plan for a child!

I thought I’d give my gift of beauty, and flutter home.

But that couldn’t happen.

I became a mother that day.

The early years were hard.

Little Rose became very difficult.

Fauna knit, Merryweather decorated, and I was left to pick berries and watch the baby.

This was not a team effort.

She was very adventurous!

And as she grew she’d travel with no limits.

She learned some numbers and letters from her aunts, but where did she learn sentences, reading, math, world history, geography?

Me. It wasn’t fair.

I was always left with the hardest chores.

Rose became more difficult over the years.

But I loved her as my own daughter.

We literally had to bolt the door.

I loved raising her,

but I never asked for ALL of the responsibility.

I knew I’d get blamed for mistakes Fauna or Merryweather wouldn’t take on.

Though I worked myself so hard and she always had warm porridge, soft clothes, and a firm bed.

She even had a unique cake, reminding me of the day I walked into a never-ending corrider with millions of mirrors, wrinkles drawn on.

I knew she’d meet a boy.

Could these sixteen years have been wasted?

All that baking, and cooking, and cleaning, and working, and sewing, and buying, and feeding, and changing, and braiding, and teaching, and keeping that awful secret from what felt like my daughter.

After I tucked her in and poured my heart into her book of fairy tales, I had to let her go.

But the sight that burned through my eyes was as she awoke; she was hugged and kissed by her birth parents, not me her real mom.

I deserve to be more than an Auntie!

A mother.

Well I practically was.

Hearing “Mom” from Rose would have been so satisfying.

Except she’s not Rose anymore, she’s Aurora.

Living in the palace, not my cottage.

I sacrificed so much, gave so much, and I only received a whispered “thank you?”

I don’t thank you.

They don’t like me to visit much.

Now I’m just the distant, old, auntie.

I know that she has already forgotten me.

Many things, you can’t control.

Moments, heck years are taken from you.

No one appreciates the true strength you have and work you do.

No one cares.

I couldn’t even keep my child.

Cupcakes Delia Petrus

Pale golden gleaming batter stains my red sweater.

But I really don’t care Crack.

Plop.

An egg drops in, electric beaters roar comes to life.

The Batter becomes creamy butterscotch pudding.

It looks just like Samantha’s blonde hair with sunlight hitting it back.

She’s in Boca Grande, green palms fluttering down to greet you, sapphire water splashing on your beach towel as you are absorbed in sunlight.

Frozen ice hangs from our native street signs.

Cold doesn’t create a rich feeling.

Even before the annoying oven timer’s beep, I huddle close.

My skin beginning to warm.

Cupcakes come out, vanilla scents the air and satisfies my taste buds; Warm, maple, vanilla. although I cannot help sadness.

Feelings slide along me.

Why is the world so harsh?

Why do we get cupcakes and other kids’ hunger eats them away?

Why do we choose to

reside in such a violent home?

Why can’t I live in Florida, with marvelous warmth.

Now why are these cupcakes sticking to the pan?

Home

Delia Petrus Ground painted white, February blizzards roar.

Navy boots Leave footprints through the snow.

Midnight air is dark, And my mind reencounters My previous home.

Normal Wednesday.

Blue sky, white clouds.

Bullets lying in the moist soil.

Explosions.

Everywhere.

Flame.

Fire.

Death.

“Accidental” they say.

The run down soldier hospital, Now a mere pile of bricks and plaster.

Alaska can hear my screech.

Do I carry a strong belief in these actions?

Do I want to be a part of this?

Is this who I’ve become, Spending pains taken hours miles from my true home?

I have exchanged my cargo suits For blue jeans and a cashmere sweater.

No more guns, dynamite, death.

No more lurching, ready at will To exterminate loved ones.

I am home Stepping onto moonlit streets, Accompanied by lonely rodents.

Starting a new chapter in life, Laying my blood stained gun On the ground.

Beginning again.

I am home.

The Ocean’s Call Eric Rohrer

The moon emerges, painting each grain of sand a glistening violet.

The silvery expanse of water stares back at me, sapphire waves breaking on the shining alabaster shore.

The crackling walls of water descend, slicing through shells like sharp shards of glass.

Small waves ripple at my feet, only an aftershock of the last crashing blow, the next roughing up the golden sand in such an enormous movement I almost expect smoke to drift off the watery machine.

Seaweed piles in heaps of slimy green leaves, collected by the regular motion of the sweeping ocean.

The cold night wind presses me forward, enclosing me in it’s vast prison.

The water swarms around my unprotected ankles, Tugging me farther into it’s shallow domain.

I rip my gaze away, and turn around.

The moon drifts behind a dark cloud, disappointed.

I was close to getting lost in that cold abyss, Moving back and forth In a rhythm ever beckoning me forward.

I trudge back up the dune, Ignoring the ocean’s call.

I will not answer.

Mario: Boss Battle Eric Rohrer

Its’a me, Mario?

Why can’t it be “Its’a me” somebody else?

I’m just a plumber, and there is something a lot bigger than these shady green pipes going on here.

I’m not cut out for being a hero, I’m cut out for identifying what’s wrong with your sink!

And, from experience, If you have upright walking turtles strutting around in there, there is more than just turtles going down the drain.

Yet I… me, the fat Italian, have been summoned to these cold brass doors?

To rescue a princess?

Princess Peach Isn’t even the Fruitiest thing here!

This king koopa, Bowser, He calls himself, has a massive spiky shell and can breathe fire.

Mama Mia! Oh, I know!

I’ll jump on his head!

That’s the logical thing to do, really.

A Town Called Wallonia

Emiliano Siegert-Wilkinson

In a town called Wallonia, they have waffles coming out of their ears.

Here a waffle.

There a waffle.

Everywhere a waffle.

Or so I’ve heard.

In a town in Belgium, they don’t have dishwashers. They don’t even wash dishes.

In a town called Wallonia, they only eat rutabagas so they don’t have to clean plates.

Or so I’ve heard.

In a town with lazy Europeans, William is the most uncommon name

for girls.

The riddle is, it’s the most uncommon name for babies who haven’t been born yet, too.

Or so I’ve heard.

In a town without Williams, philosophers listen to What is Love?! for inspiration, and their homes are on 2nd Street.

The most common street.

Because studying 2 people is better than one.

Or so I’ve heard.

In a town with typical breakfast enthusiasts, the scarves gleam like

syrup.

The boys wear Royal Blue.

So do the people.

In a town called Wallonia, waffles are made without Mrs. Butterworth.

Or so I’ve heard In a town with lots of Gender Equality, the people can’t stand a man who’s never been to Wallonia, who likes to write about waffles and girls named William.

How insensitive are Wallonians?

Grandpa and Me Cassandra Skweres

The picture, a box full of memories, locked forever in my heart.

The wood, surrounding the image, absorbing the love attached to it.

The words, like bells in the distance.

My heart sways, like an oak tree during a summer’s breeze.

His face, covered with dew, his eyes, as lovely as roses, his petal fingers cradling me, forever in time and memory.

The paleness of his skin, as bright as the morning sun awakening the earth. “Hey there. Time to give your old man a hug!�

Every time I walked into his house, his face glowing.

I wake up every morning, tired and sleepy, but as I see his face in the corner of my eye, I know he would want me to do what is best, even though you feel like the current is pulling you back.

When I visited him in the hospital, he was in so much pain.

So many medications, all tied up around him, until he came home.

The last time I saw him, he lay on his bed.

As I read my Valentine’s Day Card for him, the room became a river.

Our tears flooding the room.

I would die for this life back, to see him one last time.

To know him better, to look at the world in his perspective, to know everything he knew.

His words overlapping mine,

forever in one phrase, one moment. “No matter how many grandkids there are, grandpa loves each one the most.�

No matter how long I must walk, how long I must wait, I will always be the young toddler he used to hold.

Chief: Hatred of Young Ones Cassandra Skweres

Copper, you have asked this question when you were young, over and over, and finally, you hear the answer.

The question, if you forgot was something like this: Why do you hate little ones?

It was a hard question for me to answer for you at that young age, but I figured, you must know soon or later.

When I was young, Slade took me to a fair

just a couple of streets away from here.

When I got out of our shiny grey and black fordfull of dead raccoons and squirrels, I was joyful.

It was my first time out of the house.

To my left, I noticed a young boy coming towards me.

He wore navy bluefish overalls and a sunset orange shirt underneath.

He came closer, and closer, and closer, until he was brushed up against me. He started to rub my fur.

He stopped.

Now I know you’re going to ask, The kid was nice.

What did he do to make you angry?

Well, as he stopped, he touched my tail.

He pulled on it so hard, the feeling made me wonder if there were other people like this.

If all people or little kids did this.

As I looked into the kid’s eyes, I saw nothing.

He didn’t even care that he pulled my tail or that it hurt.

The thing was, he couldn’t feel a thing, but I did.

The kid turned away and wobbled to his mother.

I had a bruise for the next couple weeks.

It hurt.

As the days went on, I kept going to that fair, but I never saw that kid again.

He hurt not just my tail that day, but he hurt me inside by never coming back.

So that is my story.

Oh, so you want to hear another one, aye?

Well, what do you want to know?

I haven’t got all day.

A Teacher’s Pet

Cassandra Skweres She walked into the dreary room, it was a Monday.

She held a miniature parcel, between her right arm and thigh.

As she sat down, she noticed the teacher’s new doily near her desk, and the anthology warm up on the chalk board.

She wrote down her definitions, not wanting to get no credit for it.

When the bell rang, Mrs. Salvos arose from her seat.

“Welcome students.

Time to present your projects.”

Don’t pick me first, not me.

“Scarlet, why don’t you go first?”

She tiptoed to the front of the room, Oh, why me?

She placed the docile abstraction on the table, it was tufts of feathers all glued together.

As she looked to the crowd, she noticed their happiness withered away.

Just take a deep breath.

“My project is a bird. Ever since I was little, I have loved birds.”

The end… Right? Back to my seat.

The sleek feathers brushed against her skin, as she picked up the dismal animal.

“Thank you Scarlet, for the short, but sweet explanation.”

Life is never going to get better, I’m a teacher’s pet.

“Scarlet…”

What Hades said to Zeus Jacob Voelker

Sure, Zeus.

Sure.

I mean, I get that mama made you the almighty hero. And thanks, for getting us out of that pit hole of a dad.

But really? You give me the “land of the diseased,” the “Gateway to Hell.”

Give it the title you want, it’s still the place people go when their bodies are tired of living.

And why me?

You give water boy over here whole oceans, for crying out loud!

And don’t you think that it’s a bit inappropriate to fall in love with your sister?

And don’t you dare think I miss your act, Thunder Thighs!

The innocence card may fool Poseidon, but certainly not me.

You rescue us from daddy, and you’re the hero.

You control the skies and become king of the highest beings alive.

How about you pass the glory off to someone else, hotshot!

And you know what?

You know what?

It’s not my fault!

It’s yours, little brother.

And yeah, I do have a bit of a ‘tude.

But wouldn’t you, if we banished you to the bowels of the earth?

It’s all about perspective.

But what would you know about that?

Sitting there, in that “thrown of the gods” of yours, putting your sacred feet up, and watching as Nymphs pluck mango bites down your throat.

Having to listen to Apollo hamming it up big time while Dionysus pleads for approval from you.

What would you know about living it not-so-big?

Here’s a hint: We don’t throw a party every time a teenager kills a Hydra.

But you know what?

I wouldn’t expect you to.

It’s all about perspective.

Tranquil

Jacob Voelker I sit in solitude, my mind adrift.

Clouded, by the features of everyday life that surround me, forcing me into decisions I have yet to fulfill.

The lunar figure chained to the night stands outside my bedroom window.

A deep yellow light ascends its gravitational forces prison guards the only thing keeping it from departure.

Trying repetitiously, locked in the system created since birth.

Some call me conceited.

Funny they should say that, when the only thing I worry about, is not fulfilling the requirements that life expects before the hourglass loses balance.

And yet I do nothing to ease the pace of the falling sand.

My adrenalin stays dormant.

I am the moon.

Uniform, impotent, everlasting.

The silence is no longer tranquil, it’s disenchanting.

The Faults of an Orange Jacob Voelker

An orange is like the pre-teen who puts on the boots and the makeup just because the girl at school does.

It looks exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

You have to contemplate the possibilities! What would happen, if the orange was, maybe, maroon?

Oranges are con-artists selling you the sweet stuff, with the summer smell to it, when all you get at the end is a bitter face.

Eating an orange, it’s a weird feeling. It’s getting a “B” on that test you studied all night for, it’s getting second place at a spelling bee, remembering the word just a bit too late.

It’s just never enough.

Oranges are the human brain.

They worry about having the perfect shape, no dents, no lop-sided features.

What else can they care about?

The anatomy of an orange shares qualities with the way people work.

Sure, they’re harmonious on the outside.

But cut them open, and you’ll find nothing but a big mess.

An orange decays, like the man on the hospital bed, full of regret. If only he had been more maroon.

Grade 8

Hidebound

Madeline Bain “I thought a new city might rise: built from our tunes. Instead, a sameness fell.”

Inspired by Joanna Fuhrman’s “Atlantis” Each day is post-apocalyptic because each hour passed is destroyed.

We are living in a wasteland of human filth and thinly cut wood.

As we soak ourselves in bath bombs and the oblivion of privilege, it’s easy to want to change the world a little less.

And it is okay to be grateful and say thank you and please, and happiness isn’t a sin. But becoming content inside yourself

allows the fire and ice to settle and the fuel that fuels you will show in the sweat you didn’t sweat .

Warm water doesn’t even make decent tea.

The trucks of change are stuck in traffic. Land locked by scared people, defending defenseless causes.

The gods have left and we have stayed.

Empty Space Madeline Bain

By the end of the race your head aches, and so do your feet and sides and toe nails.

When eyes water and hands grip muscles, feet move around in worn down shoes. The silence of determination is not silent.

You can hear your breath, but all other flat footed pavement finding is gone. You hear the sound of yourself. It is not loud, but is consuming, and it shifts from ear to mind.

Snow unifies cities, like stars and loss.

People hide inside together, while their joints ice together. When you do venture out of the heater’s range, you can hear a silent silence.

Broken lips taste the grateful quiet.

Ear ringing ceases.

Footsteps falter, afraid to ruin the polaroid.

Escaping is not a word to describe the soundit was never there.

Bird Cages

Tess Buchanan I hop out of my family’s red minivan onto my little fouryear-old feet, closing the door behind me. My mom helps my brother, Beck, get un-strapped from his car seat. “Come on, honey,” my mom says to me, looking back as she starts into the great, beige building in front of me. Her thick, curly brown hair bounces at each step. I trail closely behind her, quickening my bound to keep up with her longer strides.

Tightening my thin coat to prevent the frigid breeze from getting in, I watch my mom as she hoists my brother higher on her hip as she walks up the front steps.

I follow her through the double doors and immediately hear the soft chatter of canaries chirping. This is the song that greets me every time we come here to visit my greatgrandma, Nanny. We walk into the large room and in front of us in the center, is a big wooden birdcage. Inside the cage is an enormous tree with tiny birds flying around it, squabbling quietly. On its branches budgies nestle and around it people gaze at them wonder. When we first started visiting her here we would admire the birds every time we came in. Today we walk right by them.

My mom sets my brother down onto the rough carpeted ground and leads him with one hand down the hall, me trotting closely behind them. She leads the two of us until we get to the end of the hallway, to a window overlooking the huge parking lot we just came from.

“Remember, you two,” she says, crouching down to our eye level, “please don’t argue or fight. For me.” Looking at both of us, I can see her eyes repeating what she has just said out loud. Her eyes strain, reaching out for me to acknowledge that I understand. She then stands back up to her full height and slowly opens the door on the left of the hallway.

The light from the hall reaches into the room as the

door creeps open. In the dim glow the first thing I see is the window on the opposite side of the room, the space’s only other source of light. Then I see the bed in the middle of the room, Nanny lying across it, the blankets up to her armpits.

Her wispy, snowy hair is splayed out in a halo around her head.

My mom steps into the room quietly and turns on the light. Now, I spot the door to the bathroom at the end of the bed and a wooden bedside table. I wander to the end of the bed with my brother as my mom sits down near Nanny, soothingly stroking her forehead and shaking her frail arm so she will wake up.

When my mother was a little girl her mom had to work early in the morning every day, so my mom would stay with Nanny. In the mornings, Nanny would gently wake her up, starting her days. Now my mom is here, returning that affection. Nanny used to wrap her arms around my mom, loving and strong. Now my mom is helping her just like my great-grandma had done for so many years before she got dementia.

“Nanny, it’s time for you to wake up now. I brought the kids to visit. We can only stay for a little bit, and it’s lunch time.” While my mom says this, the nurse slips into the room and walks around to the other side of the bed. They slowly sit Nanny up and then the nurse escorts her into the bathroom to change into a different pair of sweatpants and a clean sweater.

When she is done, my mom and the nurse help Nanny sit down into the chair by the window as we plop down next to her.

“How has your day been?” my mom asks Nanny. I look up at her, waiting for a response.

When Nanny speaks her voice is weak and rough.

“Good.” One word. Then she stares at my brother and me in wonder, as if she doesn’t believe that we exist.

We talk for twenty more minutes about what my brother had at snack time and how I got to be the line leader

in class. Then my mom tells Nanny how our dad is doing, and what my big sister, Lily, is learning in first grade. I catch in my mom’s eyes, at this moment, how much she enjoys this time. My mom loves her grandmother so much; she was a second mother to her when she was growing up. She would do everything with her. But now it’s different.

Her eyes have gotten brighter with love and adoration, but it’s impossible to ignore that Nanny isn’t who she used to be. My mom’s head is so wrapped up in that, so immersed in the moment that she loses herself in time.

Suddenly my mom jerks her head up to look at the clock.

“Shoot,” she mutters quietly, just loud enough for me to hear. She tells Nanny that we have to go pick up Lily from school. My mom looks guilty, but Nanny just smiles.

“It’s okay, as long as you remember to come back,” Nanny jokes, her voice lucid now. After saying our goodbyes we head home, leaving Nanny with the nurse.

It was that day I realized how intense the connection between the two of them really was; I saw how gently my mom treated Nanny and how Nanny seemed most comfortable with my mom. I had never noticed how often my mom went to visit Nanny. She continued visiting her almost daily until right before I started second grade, when Nanny died.

Their relationship was so strong because of all their time spent together. My mom had always gone to Nanny’s house as a girl because her mom was busy working as a nurse, trying to get enough money to send her to a good school. Nanny would always take care of my mom and love her. She would cook my mother toasted cheese sandwiches with thick chocolate milkshakes, play double solitaire and war, stage day-long Monopoly marathons, and help her get ready in the morning, day in and day out, year after year.

Back then my mom might have seen her grandma more than she saw her own mom. I usually only see my grandma once a week and we don’t have a relationship even close to what

they had.

My mother cherished all those last moments with Nanny, recognizing that the days were fleeting, like the final autumn days before the brittle winds of winter. Her death, though expected, devastated my mother. Sometimes, even ten years after Nanny died, when something interesting has happened my mom feels the urge to call and tell someone about it. Then she realizes that this person she wants to call is Nanny, and she can’t. Thinking about that leads my mom’s mind back. She remembers those times at the nursing home when Nanny’s dementia made her think that my grandpa had died. But more often, she remembers those board games and milkshakes.

I imagine for my mother a birdcage of memories, filled with laughter, puzzles and school plays. The birdcage preserves the memories of band-aids, splinters, and fevers.

Even the final days, when Nanny couldn’t remember who she was, are kept inside. It is a cage that preserves those moments long gone, that now exist only for my mother.

Defeated

Tess Buchanan Three months after, trees sheared flat by storms and no leaves left to flutter to earth.

Hurricane winds ripped viciously across a mountainside, life shuttered to the ground, departed.

We walk like dots of ellipsis scattered across a blank space,

with no life.

We walk with backpacks strung tight, listening for what should be the music of the mountains yet we hear Nothing.

No crunch of sticks beneath my feet.

No whisps of wind wandering over twigs, trees.

Irene came and left silence.

No birds in the branches above, trees splitting tree apart.

I stop still with the silence, looking out when I can hear.

I can hear the throbbing thump of blood running in my veins.

I can hear the irregular breaths of air coursing in and out and in and out of my lungs.

The only sign of life left without being tortured, defeated by winds and storms and chaos.

Numb

Tess Buchanan Twisting to my side, fleece blankets snake my legs, suffocating.

My thoughts tumble off the bed, collecting on the floor.

Go to sleep.

Go to sleep.

Go to sleep.

Mind wandering on and on lost on the train of thought that never stops.

Go to sleep.

Trying to force sleep, to plummet from awareness, frustrates, irritates.

Sleep.

Finally, my mind slides from that state of anxiety, reality to unconsciousness.

My body becomes numb.

Falling asleep is like a line on papergoing, going, going

and the pen lifts off the page— out of the mind— and into a dream.

If you’ve ever felt…

Julia Coblin

If you’ve ever felt Different Grey walls surround you as you enter the classroom.

You stand awkwardly clutching a messenger backpack .

It’s early enough in the year that there are no assigned seats and everyone seems to have silently formed these groups Nerdy and geeky guys Future jocks Prep guys Prep girls Cheerleaders Social butterflies Nerdy girls Geeky girls Anorexic Barbie dolls and fitting in with none of these you take a chair for yourself and start your own group: the anti-social.

You tell yourself that you are the best group, but you’re still the only one.

Just you, until the seats are assigned.

If you’ve ever felt Unloved Light green lights from the Christmas tree provide a dim glow in an otherwise dark basement.

All of your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins Are upstairs doing who knows what.

Being the youngest of all cousins you’re easily left out.

You had originally wanted to talk to some of the relatives who you only see once a year, but they don’t want to see you.

so you retreated to the basement with only your cousin’s little dog as company.

You look carefully as you prepare for the final shot in your you vs. you pool game.

You hit the eight ball almost into the spot, but it stops literarily a centimeter away from the hole Even the pool table seems to want to make your life a pain In frustration you start beating the pool stick off the wall when the dog barks in warning your cousin is coming down the steps.

Not wanting him to see you beating up his family’s pool stick You hang it back up on the wall and prepare to press yourself up against it to get out of his way.

But he doesn’t even notice you’re there.

If you’ve ever felt Alone Dark blue backpacks bob in front of you as you join the sea entering the cafeteria.

They are the big fish: the salmon, the trout, the swordfish, and you, you and your friends are the little guppies, desperately trying to find your way.

You trudge in, dropping your backpack on your table.

Since you sit there alone you drape your feet on the seat across from you.

You glance over at the table next to you.

The geeky boys table.

Most of your friends sit there and you’d kill to join them.

They see you as a great friend and would probably let you sit there if they knew.

But for some reason you never ask.

You slowly eat your lunch

as you do everyday.

It’s an awful routine.

If you’ve ever felt Worthless Brown mud sprays you as a black van goes over a dirty pothole in the rain The tires squeal as the car speeds off, Leaving you there You slip in the layer of filth covering the sidewalk and fall down, skinning your knees.

The blood wells up and people pass you.

You’re fine, really, it was just a little cut.

But it would still be nice if someone asked.

If you’ve ever felt Dirty Yellow paint scrapes off your hands into the sink.

At least you thought it was coming off.

You couldn’t be sure without the lights turned off.

You turned the lock into place and sat on the edge of the tube.

You shouldn’t have to hide from your family, but you were.

Friends, family, and other people you thought you cared about you had sent you one message too many that they found you disgusting.

But this was the first time you thought that maybe, maybe they were right.

If you’ve ever felt Confused Hazel eyes glare back at you so hard you expect the mirror

to crack.

Then you realize that you’re having a staring contest with yourself.

You’ve never really looked in the mirror before, but after what the people who know you best have said, you needed to see that you were perfectly human.

You needed to see that some vial creature wasn’t looking back at you.

They didn’t even think that you were anything bad, but everything escalates in your own head.

Maybe they were right.

You walked back in manner that showed that you hadn’t entirely ruled out the idea that you were a monster.

What are you?

If you’ve ever felt Lost Green chairs are pushed away from the table and everyone but you leaves.

This can’t be happening to you again.

After sitting alone for a month but always wishing for one, specific table your friend from that table finally invited you to sit with them.

After a time pure ecstasy that you thought would never end, that perfect table was breaking up.

Because of a fight that you weren’t even involved in you have to find a new place to sit.

But this time, there was no “one” table where most of your friends sat that you could concentrate your efforts onto moving too.

Now all of your friends were scattered across the cafeteria.

You all had fit together so perfectly, but the puzzle was now broken You could always sit alone again.

That wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, but no, No, you can’t go through that again Your best friend never sat at your table in the first place, but the two people who were tied after him both did, and now they were both going to sit with him.

You could sit there.

You, and your three favorite people at your school, that sounds perfect, except that there were two other people at that table, who you didn’t know.

Most of the people at your table had gone it sit with one of your other friends, you could sit with them but two people you couldn’t stand were also there.

The remainder of the people had gone to sit with some other friends of yours.

You were friends with everyone at that table.

You could sit there.

But it looked so crowded, you didn’t know if you could fit there.

You couldn’t fit anywhere.

If you’ve ever felt Miserable Light blue key chains and flash drives are falling into your hands.

You just want your key so you could get inside before you completely break down.

Finding it, and desperately jamming it into the door, twisting, then yanking it out.

Inside you lock yourself in, home alone in a pitch black house.

You slide down the door.

You don’t turn on a light.

You don’t deserve light.

You just find your IPod and fumble with the headphones, shove them in your ears and play the saddest song you can find, wandering around the empty house, leaving the floors wet, because when you tried to drink water it all came gurgling out of your mouth, spilling everywhere.

You didn’t bother to clean it up.

If you’ve ever felt Rage Blood red blurs your vision as you sit on bus, fists clenched, your facial muscles scrunched up as you fight the urge to scream. You leap off the bus and storm home, not saying goodbye to your friend, and you storm back to your house, practically kicking the door down as you shove off that jacket you always wear and hurl it as far as you can throw, across the room until it hits a wall.

Turning on angry, fast music you pace around the house, Desperately trying to calm yourself before someone comes home.

Those idiots who called themselves your friends were pushing their luck.

And the worst part is they were just trying to help you.

Although your anger is directed at them it’s really at yourself because they might be right about what they think you are.

You don’t know.

All you do know is if it really is true you’d never forgive yourself.

If you’ve ever felt

Hatred Black clouds fill your mind the second the person is mentioned.

Storms rage across your brain when the person is mentioned.

Strange animal noises escape your throat when the person is mentioned, and you can’t control them or get them to stop.

Every time you see them you are either hiding praying that they haven’t seen you, suppressing an involuntary shudder, or fighting the urge run at them and tackle them.

We all have someone who has this effect on us.

This is beyond temporary rage at people who usually care about.

This is deep rooted hate and the key difference is it never goes away.

If you’ve ever felt Revenge Purple chalk drawings are scraped off under your feet as you drag someone behind the school and start punching.

Remember the person from hatred?

Well this is feeling you get when you get to see them broken and bruised at your feet.

Begging for your mercy is optional, but preferred.

You don’t even have to actually beat them up.

Any form of payback is acceptable.

Sometimes you just imagine it.

This is fine, just plotting, making plans that you will never complete is enough to give you that feeling that you’ve won.

Call it morbid, call it sick, but it essential to get over whatever they did to you and to know that you’ll be okay.

Nyctophobia and Nyctophilia Brianna Kline Costa

Streetlights hum softly, and gravel crunches beneath my feet, and I hear a ringing in my ear, in the back of my mind, all around me.

Part of me imagines days before these ones, before broken glass littered the ground and torn pages ripped from books rustle like dead leaves around our feet.

Maybe there was a time before bouquets of wilted flowers, petals yellowing like pages of an old book, sitting on an abandoned dinner table, and forests of empty trees, hanging from the sky like skeletons—maybe there was a world filled with more than cracked mirrors and unanswered cries for help and brown murky waters.

I imagine there had to be a time when the air wasn’t polluted by black smoke and quiet sobs, before mud smeared ankles and tears smeared faces, before the wind burned our colorless eyes, and the distant howling of wolves, fur woven from moonlight, rubbed my skin raw, before secrets slipped through parted lips, before the notes to every song died

on our empty breaths.

I try to imagine life without dark corners and cracked bricks and starless nights, before the caws of hungry crows slice through the air, before dirty hair was cut with dull kitchen scissors, before the houses made of sticks and hay that took just a wolf’s breath to tumble down.

Iced Tea

by Brianna Kline Costa

“What does it mean to love the life we’ve been given?

To act well the part that’s been cast for us?”

I was asked today if I would like a little sweet lemon iced tea? I absent-mindedly replied, yes, yes, if you insist. I sipped it timidly, through a pink straw. I had downed half the glass before I realized that I hated iced tea. Figures.

It doesn’t matter much, I hadn’t tasted a single drop. The dismissive indifference that envelopes my body and entwines my bones, locking in tendrils around my organs, tightening like a vise, is not an angry air of belligerent nonchalance.

Anger, aggression, those require passion, emotion of any kind.

No, this apathy sucks the life from my breath

and leaves me hallow. It’s a hard thing to explain, you first have to know what it feels like for each step you take to require every ounce of energy you have.

So I have taken to simply laying on the disarray of piled blankets on my bed—who makes their bed anymore?

I stopped a while ago, I found it pointless and uselessly repetitive—and stare at the maps on my ceiling for hours.

Cities, states, countries, I love to memorize the capitals and imagine the lives of the people living in Suamico or San Angelo or wherever. When you begin hating the place where you live, you find yourself more and more often imagining leaving. So I sit outside and think of all the places I could go and watch a fly buzz around my porch light until I flick the switch off and it distractedly flies away, searching for a new light.

Places

Louise Finnstrom Here is somewhere everyone around you is defined, knowing in the way they move- the world of the city is splintered in soft light.

Smelling the cologne when someone drops by you, Brooklyn is a cousin, wearing casual clothes, the brick couch beaming by the city.

Every language joins another, voices like slippery glass fish, and I especially am drawn to the ones in the sun, jumping, silky, hot rocks piping and steaming. and you are a part of it.

A language of festivity, of humanity, Each step you submerge deeper into a human Here you are entirely, not preconceived, no attachments to leave stop signs.

The day feels tangy and street umbrellas

I smell savory grill a block away.

My things are in the room, and I’m a rush in the streets. Everyone is happening. I step back where Nordstrom might’ve grasped the ground with a large marble hand.

All life swirls together in layers.

Purple bibs out in mimics.

12:00 am.

The jungle maraca is playing.

It really is a silent night, the sheerness, the so smooth, tiny as the stars on their heads, fragrant, trickling, No avoiding the stain glass windows, cars dripping behind, settling into it all.

Scranton Block Island Louise Finnstrom

The morning was gray turning white in the opening summer, July 2005. It was a traveling day when a week ago, I had turned five with year. It would be a 2 day marathon trip, with a night in between. I didn’t know what a traveling day meant yet: a day when the world is asleep, and you quietly slip in your car (after frantic mom’s, my brother shaving and loudly, quietly hustling, everything hauled into the back of our Honda, my dad doing most of the work because it’s too early and I drop most things trying. Then after all that, you quietly slip into your car, driving off through the morning, into somewhere else in the world, in our case

listening to mom’s song Leila in her African Music CD, (maybe from the peace corps, or being an ESL teacher but she’s culturally interested.) Me and Ben would usefully pass the time nitpicking over whether my things have crossed into his territorial side of the backseat (luckily at 5 and 7 years old, we probably hadn’t reached that stage, good for our parents.) I didn’t know what a traveling day meant yet, because this was my first time doing it, as in a real-down-toEarth tickets and hotels, FAMILY VACATION.

If you would like, back round information: Block Island is a tiny island. My Cousin Lucy goes to the one school that’s there, and K-12, there’s about 180 people, meaning the biggest class she’s ever had…12 people. Twelve whole people to talk to every day, to learn about who they are, like you are partly in their life and core, too. Not many people know about this place, if that makes any excuses.

Anyway, six hours later we arrived at any typical hotel: it was the Comfort Suite in Scranton PA, on Montage Mountain, halfway to the island, where all the highways intersect. We walked into a lobby, most likely with glossy brown furniture and desks, green towering plants, and the breakfast room shyly peeping from behind. The cozy chair was a luxury. We swam in the pool, chlorine pouring into us, out of a blue-wash door, before we reached the water stairs.

Dinner happened at a restaurant called Mugg’s with painted faces all over the walls, and pub mugs of root beer. I’m guessing I squirted ketchup faces on my kids burger, while me and Ben, with his sculpted, rising ears, and illuminating hair, which hasn’t changed much since then, laughed about something that made no sense, even to us, and later in the hotel room we watched Sponge bob together. It was really the perfect time, and I know this because in our hotel room, at some point between walking to the Registration desk, and squirming into a huge puffy mattress at night, I shouted with pitch enthusiasm, “I LOVE BLOCK ISLAND!” Everyone

laughed, and I didn’t realize why, but I was five, so I didn’t care very much. No one had the not heart to tell me, and now every time we drive to Block Island, which has become an annual family trip, somewhere along the way, either my mom or dad jokes, “ Why drive all this way and pay more money? We could just stop and vacation at the hotel in Scranton PA!” Then everyone laughs. This time I actually understand why.

Hidden In a White Cage

By Zoe Fuller

Freckles of snow sprinkle my cheeks, skies of winter slush.

Fresh flurries ckkkkkk-kkk-runch, sodden boots and burning ears.

Lips peeled, damp dots on a blurry screen.

My fingers grip, straining in thin pockets, grinning.

Feet perk, bouncing, stumbling on frozen ground.

Heart, head, lips, lungs, feet, body, pounding with blood.

I can hear, hear, hear it.

The heart of the world

beats bumpbump beats through my body.

Bah ba dump. Bah ba dump. Against crimson walls and winter falls.

The Silver Screen

By Zoe Fuller

Eyes of eager fire and swollen smiles burn the silver screen.

Translucent lies and damaged hearts speak through broken teeth.

Heads and hands and darkened lips curse and lie and fail.

Tales spin raven black and frosted white

to build a golden veil.

Vitality

Zoe Fuller Red Wrapping paper pasted with smiling jolly men crowd around our feet, washing us in a sea of ribbons and boxes.

Green 3 2 1 jump.

A pounding, a banging of little feet, wood moaning.

Hey. Don’t jump there.

You might fly through the window.

Blue Tumbling.

Snow, sled, scarf.

Little stubs of broken green

bend in the dips of my cheeks.

He Is the Brother

Becca Glickman Inspired by Beyond the Veil By Lindsey Stirling His hair wraps around his neck like shoelaces, and his teeth hold spaces for no good junk food and lame stories about his no good teacher and his annoying friends.

His brain has decomposed from xbox and minecraft.

And his respectable attitude towards his sister no longer exhists.

He is my brother his charming eyes and exquisite wardrobe demolish my hatred towards him.

He is the brother I asked for as a 4 year old.

He is the brother that Played library with me And showed me how to Properly eat a cup of pudding.

His squeaky laugh directs bad moods to good especially my moms.

His squeaky laugh can turn a bumpy road trip To a pleasurable family sing along

Within seconds Even though he used to hate it When I sang the song from ice age And growls when god forbid he Gets some homework done, He is the brother I asked for, The brother I am glad I received.

Refractions Lillian Hosken

Our songs shimmer like sunlight refracting through tears; endless as the wind.

Our voices united as one being; then parting like light through stained glass, beaming multicolored reflections onto the dusty floor.

Our bodies stand as rocks, trembling against the waves of music flowing from our lips.

Harmonious whitecaps crash over our heads lapping at the sanctuary walls; reverberating the moonlit windows.

Our sound floods the body of this empty church like the way hot tea can spread through your body. seeping into your throat, your heart, your lungs; your soul.

Flowing, moving, forever motionless.

For a moment time stops, forgotten in an oasis of voices.

Canary

Lillian Hosken Torn leather boots pummel the frozen cement.

Walking, walking, walking.

Brown brick houses litter the street with shriveled gardens; leafless trees.

The air is drenched weighed down by the murky sky; its storm clouds enclosing the city in darkness like a black cloth over a birdcage.

I am an imprisoned canary.

Slamming the screen door to my dimly lit house, I leave my coat dangling off the back of a chair.

I perch on a light brown couch in the dark brown living room, and search my homework for evidence that it might not be impossible.

Helpless, a failure, I power on my iPhone, sitting in the blue light of the screen waiting for something worthwhile.

Waiting in vain. waiting waiting waiting‌ I figure doing homework is not quite as boring doing as nothing, and revise a handwritten half-ass essay, the caged bird that I am.

Graphite on notebook paper scribbling scribbling scribbling.

It is 5:36pm and I am toiling in the shadow of my living room in the eternal dusk of December scribbling gray on gray.

*************************** - Once caught, a bird’s only purpose is to fade into the wallpaper.

Probably Jora Hritz

You have a one in fifty-two chance of picking a queen of spades out of a deck of cards.

You have a 1 in 6,700 chance of dying in a car accident.

We all experience the world differently.

We wake up at different times, we fall asleep at different times, we love different people.

We all have different colored eyes.

Mine a light brown, another’s green with specks of yellow.

It is a possibility that no two people see the same way.

We may experience colors differently.

We may experience sounds differently.

What if everyone except me has the same perspective?

What if they have the accurate eyes?

I’m the abnormal one.

But what if I’m the only person who sees what we are supposed to?

What if I view the world the way it’s meant to be seen?

The right sounds, the right colors.

I would still be

the abnormal one.

Is anything normal?

I have spent countless nights staring at my chipped window sill, turned on my side, pondering the question, is anything normal?

Normality doesn’t come from what’s true, it’s all about how we compare to others.

If you don’t act, speak, think, or look the same as everyone else, you are abnormal.

That’s the way society evolved throughout the centuries.

The most ordinary human being on Earth can also be the most different.

Take a chance and step outside.

Anything can kill you.

An air bag to the face, or a stab in the back.

If you play your cards right, you can have the life you want.

You have fifty-two cards.

Choose one.

Smelling Innocence Jora Hritz

Rays peak through the clouds as a warm breeze floats through the air. Children are shrieking and lawn mowers groan. I hear the snipping from the shears as twigs

fall from the fiery shrub in front of my house. A butterfly smaller than a leaf drifts over to the purple Buddleia.

“Can I hold it daddy?” I whisper, trying not to scare the insect away.

In preschool we raise butterflies on the rooftop. We watch them go through all the stages starting with the egg.

When they are fully developed and ready to flutter away we set them free. Our playground is on the roof of the building.

Once a month in the summer my class changes into our bathing suits, walks up to the playground, and runs around.

Our teachers spray us with hoses and shoots water onto the slides for us to slip down. We each take a butterfly onto our finger to let it test out its wings. It seems so excited to be out of its cage and able to explore whatever it wants. Every time it moves I giggle with excitement as it tickles my skin.

Eventually it flies away never to be seen again.

“Only if it wants us to,” my dad replies.

He sticks his dirty glove covered finger onto the long skinny flowers that the butterfly rests on.

“Always let him decide if he wants us to hold him,” my dad explains.

Flapping its wings the butterfly disappears into the clouds along with my excitement.

“Maybe he saw his friends and wanted to be with them,” my dad responds, adding a smile.

I know he’s lying. Yet I still curve the corner of my lips upward to show my appreciation. The sky was still. There were no other butterflies. The insect didn’t like us.

“What does the bush smell like?” I ask.

“Why don’t you stick your nose into one of the flowers and find out,” he chuckles.

I lean forward and inhale the pollen. “So that’s what purple smells like!” I exclaim hoping my mom will write my discovery in her book.

For Christmas, my mother was given a black journal.

Metallic colored stickers stuck to the cover smelling out “Jora Said.” She was supposed to write down the silly phrases

that I came up with, but instead she only wrote down three sentences. “It’s not good, but it’s not like I have to throw up.”

“How do you spell CD?” “So that’s what purple smells like!”

I like being a kid. Without childhood I wouldn’t have as many memories as I have today. Without childhood the crazy expressions I said would have been overlooked. Never truly thought about. Never written down in a book. Because of this book I can understand. Understand how when we are children we have this charm. This innocence that gives us the power to be free.

As I grow older, birthdays come faster and faster, the years become shorter and shorter, and I slowly loose the innocence I once had. We are supposed to be responsible, become wiser, and not cry at the miserable parts in life.

Become stronger and have more courage to push us through the hard times. Butterflies are free. They never seem to grow old; always young and graceful. Innocent.

Maps

Kalin Jeffers She bit the last of her pennies, and the copper got caught between her aching molars.

The rust on her car made her bitter. The radio was stuck on NPR. Her boyfriend abandoned her a year and a half ago.

He took the cat and changed his cell number.

He left her confused.

She’s a city girl because she’s afraid of being bored.

She’s afraid of being irrelevant.

She’s afraid of being alone.

She is alone.

Her worst fear had swallowed her, It flew in her veins, It got caught between her strands of static hair, it built up under her fingernails.

She drank it through a straw.

The pool of her mind was deep, wind chimes hung from the ceiling although she didn’t have windows.

She loved the sound and how it danced behind her eyes.

On some mascara midnights, when she cried about all the things she had never done, like seen a Broadway play, or taken a taxi at sunset, she mediated on her regrets.

Every wedding invitation she turned down, every Christmas dinner she skipped out on.

And she let them go, she released them from her cage, from the entrapment of her iron ribs.

And suddenly, The knot that tied her to the fire unraveled.

The Pain of Solitude Mohammed Laswad Solitude, the one and only friend of many people.

Sitting under the dark shade alone, while everyone else is shining brightly in the light of God. As they ask you in vain, Why sit alone?

Is it at all comforting?

The truth is that in this world many prefer the obscurity of solitude, but there is not one person, not a single person in this world that can withstand it.

Gestural Demonstration Mohammed Laswad

I close my eyes and See nostalgic images

That mobilizes my consciousness One by one like a Typhoon in a circular motion I gently pick up the pastel of The color cerulean and With gracefulness, I close My eyes I scribble with curvaceousness And reminisce about the time The sand was between my toes And how that one glass of smoothie Filled my body with a chilling feeling I set the cerulean pastel down and grab The hellish color of red and reminisce About the time when I realized I lost my essay, for it Was a hellish day for me I see now that this not Scribbling, This was a piece of art to Me I now pick up the green pastel And reminisce about the Time I got to solitude with Nature This was a heavenly day for me A day of solitariness Again, I see a work of art Scribbles over scribbles One emotion imbricates another This experience, Being mad, lonely, and happy At the same time,

Is a joyful experience

THE LOST SIGNIFICANCE Mohammed Laswad

Over my times in my communication class from 7th

grade, we learned many vocabulary words, literacy devices, and how to write good summaries and put it all into one piece, an essay. We were reading the book, “TANGERINE,� which is a book I disliked, but mandatory to write an essay on for the culminating project. The culminating project considered the piece of writing an essay but it was really in a form of a news article in which it talks about the sinkhole at Lake Windsor Middle School. I put 101% of my effort on this essay and I knew it would boost my grade up a lot.

The morning that the essay was due, I revised it at home, revised it in the security line, and revised it with my friends before majors. As I walk up the darkness of the east stairwell with my friends, the essays is in my hand, as I open the gateway of the fourth floor and enter the cafeteria. I sit down at the tall tables, which are as big as Chewbacca that sit four people at the end of the cafeteria. My friends devour their food in a matter of seconds and we leave, not knowing

the essay wasn’t in my hand.

“Dang guys, take your time while eating, you guys were eating like filthy animals. Y’all have crumbs all over y’all faces,” I say.

“We were really hungry, we couldn’t help but it lake filthy animals.” Luke says.

“Whatever, lets go put my essay in m locker and get permission from Mitchell.”

Mitchell gives us a pass and we ride the elevator to nine.

“5…6…7…8…9, finally,” we all say.

We get out of the elevator and slide our way to my locker, in front of the boys’ bathroom. Not realizing the essay was not in my hand, I open locker 9012, finally realizing I have nothing to put in there.

“Where’s my essay?” I ask calmly.

“We don’t know,” Nick, Ronald and Luke say.

“Mohammed, calm down,” Nick says.

“Shut up,” as I yell at Nick, dragging him into the boys’ bathroom. “If you ever tell me to calm down, I will tear you limb from limb and kick you in the face so hard that it will land into my family’s castle in Yemen! Got that!”

“Yes,” Nick says, doubting to ever tell me to calm

down

“The last place you probably had it was the fourth

floor cafeteria,” Luke says.

“Yeah Mohammed, lets check the fourth floor,” Ronald

says, agreeing with Luke.

“Yeah sure,” I say, trying to keep my temper down.

So we go sliding down the handlebars on the South

stairwell, until we reach the fourth floor.

“Here we are Mohammed. Lets hope your essay is still there,” Luke says.

We walk to the opposite side of the floor, where the cafeteria is. We looked under the chairs, the floors, and everywhere else but nothing is there.

“Nothing under the chairs,” Luke says.

“Nothing on the tables,” Ronald says.

“Nothing on the floor,” Nick says.

“Wait Mohammed, that janitor might know where any lost papers would go,” Luke says, pointing at the janitor.

I walk up to the janitor, with anger and desperation for the essay. After all, it was a pain in the back to finish it.

“Excuse me,” I say to the janitor.

“Yes, young man,” the janitor says back.

“Did you happen to see an essay on any of the tables, the tall table sin particular?” I ask, trying to keep my cool.

“No, I’m sorry, he replied.

The anger inside me is getting stronger by the millisecond.

“But…” the janitor says.

A bit of light started to overcome my anger.

“But… what?” I ask.

“But there is a lost and found next to Ms. Thomas’s room and…” he couldn’t finish We are already running up to Ms. Thomas’s office.

“See you, thanks, and have a great day.” We all say.

So Luke, Nick, Ronald, and me go storming up four floors with sweat all over our bodies, with a note in our hand from officer Mitchell and go to the lost and found.

“Umm… Mohammed,” Luke says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Sorry to ruin the vibe, but the essay isn’t here,” Luke replies.

“Mohammed, keep your cool, I have an idea,” Nick says.

“And what is that?” I ask with curiosity.

“This might be tiring, but it’s a last resort,” Nick says.

We walk up one floor to nine. We went to Ms. Yellin’s

room, Mr. Esken’s room room, so I did, by myself.

“You guys, I asked Yellin and Eskin and they said they

don’t know anything about any essay,” I said.

“How about Mrs. Cook?” Nick insisted.

“Aright,” I say.

I have to wait for a while since Mrs. Cook is on the

phone.

“She’s on the phone, I’’ll wait,” I say.

After five minutes… I go inside.

“What do you want Mohammed?’ Mrs. Cook asks.

“I finished my culminating project last night and did so well on it, but then I lost it. I thought maybe you’d have it.”

I go to check her desk and luckily she has it.

“Where’d you find it Mrs. Cook?” I ask.

“The head custodian found it in the cafeteria and it had my name as the assignment giver, so he gave it to me,” Mrs. Cook says.

I run out the door to Luke, Ronald, and Nick.

“I found it, well Mrs. Cook found it, but it doesn’t matter, I technically still get full credit,” I say.

“Thank the Lord,” We all say.

I was happy that I found my essay, with the help of my

friends. We didn’t realize that we didn’t go to majors until we heard the bell for the beginning of fourth period. We were so focused on finding my essay that we forgot all about majors, but luckily so we didn’t get in trouble, we still had the note from Mitchell. I learned to never keep important schoolwork in my hand and revise it many times, when I can revise it only twice. I also learned to never let excitement get the best of you, even though you think you’re going to get a good grade.

Paradox

Zoe Magley It’s one in the afternoon and snowing grey.

Our boots beat prints onto the Boston sidewalks.

I walk behind you mimicking steps, hiccuping in the snow, step left, step right, stop, repeat.

If I fall, your arm would catch me. If you stumble, I am behind.

Born together, we are meant to grow together; two chips off the same block at the same time.

Meant to be best friends, meant to be enemies Same dimples laughing at the same jokes, blue eyes that tell stories and brown eyes that keep them hidden.

It’s like this on occasion: haze settling over our constant colorful battles.

It’s like this on occasion: broad shoulders and wide smiles identical and candid.

For once we are together and no longer in a combat for control.

For once It’s not every man for himself.

Reality bang bang bangs in the background.

It’s one-thirty and it’s a swing while back and forth and back and forth and back and forth our words are a static in the background, yesterdays stupid arguments still stuck in our teeth.

If I fall, you wouldn’t look back.

We are shared hatred for siblings and we are night while the other is day and we are brown hair, thick skulls, and we are screaming at the top of our lungs and we are teenage angst and we are thinking the same thoughts and we are you two are related?

We are paradoxical.

We are mirror images and it’s not possible for us to be more different.

Content Seclusion

Inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks Zoe Magley A silhouette he perches, shadowed, resplendent with a light harsher than how he stirs his coffee.

Alone but not lonely.

Crimson dresses and lips intertwine with cigarette

smoke hands, provoke jealousy, but his eyes rest solely on the oak bar.

How can a man be so comfortable with isolation?

Eyes empty like black coffee, glossed like the handle of the mug he holds, and puts down, and spills the salt.

Where’s the pinch to throw?

The devil lurks behind, shadowed claws, bared teeth.

Yet, unaffected, unaware, unconscious he stays.

Why is he like this?

To shame him for loving solitude is hypocritical when I, myself, prefer detachment.

To degrade him for the hollow he feels is unconventional, when we all hear our hearts rattling some days.

Pray, I want to tell him.

That those empty-eyed stares will cease.

Pray that scarlet curls will no longer scorn you.

Pray that the devil will overlook the forgotten salt.

And forgive like I have.

Forgive others.

Forgive those who have hurt you.

And at the end of the day, forgive yourself.

Rain Girl

Katarina Mondor She is tall, her hair curls lightly at the tips.

The ugly morning hardly dampens the glow around her.

She enjoys the dark morning that tired of itself, already, is pelting and windy.

Her sharp cheekbones carve the rain and snow.

The gloom sweeps around her, leaving her untouched.

She is a puddle jumper, sending gleams of sunlit water to everything around her.

She waits, patiently, for the bus that rumbles around the corners of the tall buildings that clutter the city.

While others suffocate under the misery of the cold winter morning, she thrives.

Rink

Katarina Mondor We were one with the ice.

Tails of frost trailed where we went.

The blades inscribe the thick ice, engraving pathways that outlined the rinks’ border.

Rickety rumbles announce when someone fell, but people rose but people go on.

Shavings of ice ornamented the walls, as people pull to sharp stops.

Slash swoosh people pivot around the bends.

Christmas music reverberates through tinny loud speakers that only sometimes work.

Coats on, coats off, the more you are in the cold,

the warmer you become.

There are two types of people, those who can skate, and those who can’t.

From those who can come the sounds of lightly landed jumps and gentle glides down the sheet of ice.

From those who can’t come the sounds of stumbles and crooked skates.

Everyone’s a critic.

Everyone has to get off the ice when the Zamboni comes.

It swerves and swirls around the corners of the rink.

The sign outside explains that it is melting the ice so it will be easier to skate on.

Children whine, ask if it is closing time, they don’t understand.

When everyone gets back

on the ice they glide smoothly; the Zamboni worked.

Puddles of water indicate that it’s not winter, yet.

Phillies Diner

Katarina Mondor Inspired by Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks The woman at the counter is unamused, or maybe she’s not paying attention anymore.

Both of us are gone, our minds elsewhere.

We sit there playing with our food, like a child, waiting for something exciting.

No one around her speaks except for the busy waiter, compensated to be friendly.

Everyone around me chats, there is never any peace and quiet.

Maybe she wants someone to talk to.

She paints her the bags

under her eyes to try and hide the fatigued look of them, it is obvious she gets little rest.

Both of us consider sleep a privilege.

She pulls her sunset orange hair back in a desperate attempt not to look quite as exhausted.

My hair helps cover my weary eyes.

Weary from too much seeing.

Weary from too much seeing.

She scarcely pays attention to anyone around her, even the waiter, who continues suggesting another cup of coffee.

My thoughts wander to the wall, something has caught my attention.

She says quite little, like a child at rest, she is at peace.

She and I prove to be more alike with every glance I take at her still body.

We are also different:

She is thoughtful, with a touch of understanding.

She speaks little, knows much.

I am the opposite, I know little and speak much.