10
the Racquette
Creative Writing
March 25, 2016
Missing Voices Poetry Contest Winners Slur of My Identity Jesse Patrick
I can feel my tooth chip off under the weight of my clenching jaw; My whole life has been a raging silence Silence burst my eardrums; reached into my soul Grabbed hold of it and beat it until my chest broke open. My passions- all sprawled out on the earth. I have buried my fists into the face in the mirror The only thing I salvate now is copper The distaste of my own tongue. I don’t shower no more because I can’t stand to army crawl past the window. It’s looking into this life that some woman is living somewhere Maybe when I fix myself I’ll undress again. Hopefully then, she won’t be there. I stopped correcting people when I realized I was being annoying.
I only did it because I thought I ought to live a life and pursue my happiness; When one in twelve of me are getting murdered And I want to be my own killer it’s hard to reach for those stars. The words brave were sliced into my chest. I carried the weight in two plastic sacks pinned under my shirt Another secret to keep. They dripped blood all day long, I kept emptying myself down the dorm drains. I still see a woman in the window This never leaves my lips. After my skin yellows from purple and my 40 stitches melt into my chest I am legally considered a man, only with my doctor’s permission I still can’t correct you. I still spit copper in the mornings, I still need fixing. Please leave; Goodbye woman
She Learned Silence Summer Kelly
She learned early that words grow thinner As they ascend, delicate and unbreathable, wisps of smoke fluttering from the tips of freshly scorched candle wicks.
as a caricatured dance, in which they’re the ones to open Lenny’s head, blooming peony-pink, unfurled like the butterfly wings pinned beneath glass on her grandmother’s living room wall, garnished with specks of shattered bone.
So she became as invisible as she was, a quick glimmer sinking dull into the sun. A moment dazzled red, burning her dactylogram into sea glass before the sand wore her smooth, soundless. Instead of speaking, she lit a small fire in the hollow of her throat. Pinched fingers plucked out purple dreams and,
Her father looks on her with dismay, perplexed by the scarlet flash of the fox quivering behind her eyes, by the ink spilling from her fingertips and staining the countertops. Her teeth mill themselves into a perfect jigsaw puzzle. She’d presented him with her childhood; mud-cakes topped with chickenfoot-yellow dandelion heads. He’d placed them carefully into a kiln, and they became a shattered visage of what she once was,
not knowing what else they could be good for, lay them side by side on a wooden board to be stretched and dried and made into a coat.
which was not what she had meant at all.
She writes red-eyed rabbits performing “Of Mice and Men”
Color
Jesse Patrick
black bodies bleed red when they hit grey on their blacks they see blue they see blue behind the trigger too white inside the blue white getting silver silver plates handed to them everything on it silver only touches black in the chest bullets when silver meets black black bodies bleed their red in the concrete jungle life tries to break through somewhere patches of green and yellow concrete jungles don’t have much green because blood doesn’t grow trees but blood wouldn’t spill without the silver silver and blue blue makes us wear black for the funerals for black people black children who seeped red into the grey concrete jungle
New York Times Best Sellers Fiction
Young Adult
1. FIRE TOUCHED, by Patricia Briggs. A shape-shifter and her Alpha werewolf mate, protect a stolen child.
1. LADY MIDNIGHT, by Cassandra Clare. Another generation of Shadowhunters grapples with occult murders and the stirrings of first love.
2. OFF THE GRID, by C. J. Box. The 16th Joe Pickett novel features Nate Romanowski and a search for a domestic terror cell.
2. GLASS SWORD, by Victoria Aveyard. Mare marshals an army of newbloods with regicide on its mind.
3. THE STEEL KISS, by Jeffery Deaver. Lincoln Rhyme and his new assistant, investigate a domestic terrorist.
3. RED QUEEN, by Victoria Aveyard. A girl with a special power lives in a kingdom divided.
4. ME BEFORE YOU, by Jojo Moyes. A woman finds herself while caring for a wealthy, embittered quadriplegic.
4.THE SIREN, by Kiera Cass. Akinii falls in love with an otherworldly creature.
5. THE NIGHTINGALE, by Kristin Hannah. Two sisters are separated in World War II France.
5. SALT TO THE SEA, by Ruta Sepetys. Teenage refugees flee the advancing Red Army in 1945
She Lost the Moon Summer Kelly
I scream and my voice shakes ice from the sky The moon flies down and perches on the edge of my frosted breath Copper stains my tongue green jaw clenched too hard fingernails make purple crescents on
my palms I imagine blood painting my teeth and the moon comes through my eyes cold hard driving feet forward gray fur dusted with luminous silver broken snarls roll up from the fire in my belly and
I am wrenched from myself Imagining teeth ripping out his voice as he swallows mine Moon eyes close so I won’t see him walking away with no claw marks raked down his back sterling Cheshire smile twisting his cheeks my wailing heart clenched in his fist I howl desperately but the moon says nothing