Poetry
Photo by Jessica Jones
Old, Withered, and Smiling From Ear to Ear
Grace Poytress
Imagine a time
A place
Years from now, where I won’t be afraid to die
Where I would know that I had lived a full, healthy and happy life
Where I would accomplish whatever I put my mind to
Where I would wake up with a taste for adventure
And where I would go to sleep with no regrets
Years will pass me by in the blink of an eye
And with each blink, tears will roll down my cheek
Tears of sadness, anger, happiness, love
Tears of a woman who had lived a life worth living
A life with struggles and hardships
That will test me to no end
But a life with wonderful memories
That will be etched into my brain
Living on for decades due to its careful stitching
Memories of my wedding
Memories of having my first child
And the next one
Even memories the have little or no significance to anyone else
Ones that matter just to me
I will look back on the scrapbook of my life which I’ve created in my mind
And know that I had given life my all
Every ounce in me was given to make my sure time on this earth was worth it
Worth the pain
Worth the frustration
Worth the loss
Worth all the hard times I would go through
Just to see the brighter side
I hope one day, far from now that I’m happy with all that I’ve done
Old, withered and smiling from ear to ear
But for now, I’ll try not to think about it too much
I’ll think about going to prom
And graduation
And going to college
I’ll think about what any average seventeen year old kid thinks about
I don’t want to worry about the future to much
I want to live in the now
Pot on a Stove
Skylar Hughes
My mom is a pot on a stove,
Covered with an opaque lid
So you don’t see the bubbles
Until they’re spilling out
Over the hot grate.
Boiling water splashes over the side
And all you can do
Is take off the lid and hope
To avoid the worst of the hot water
Before you can back away
Until it boils again.
My mom is a pot on a stove
Covered with a lid.
And when I turn up the temperature,
I sit and I wonder
Why my hand was burned
In the end.
Jin Xin Parlow
On the End of this Pencil
Bryce Hamilton
It is round and flat
laying on it’s back.
It is simple and square
with its white colored glare.
It can take mistakes
when you have made too much.
With a short stroke of the white rubber
Any word can be reduced to illegible blabber.
Jessica Jones
I Must Become a Menace to My Anxiety
Abigail Colomb
I will no longer be controlled
by irrationality
Be afraid.
I plan to give you reasons for your irrational thoughts,
and hours of wasted time.
I will not politely adhere anymore
and this is dedicated in particular
to the one who wastes my time
and causes me to
miss out
then sees me
so afraid
and carries on
continuing this impressive terror
I plan to fight back on an afternoon
surrounded by people I love singing
terrible revenge in merciless
accelerating
rhythms
But
I have watched the impossible happen
I have overcome this
Regularly
I have laid anxiety down
in a grave too easily escaped
the dead can still rise
I live like a deer
Who lives in constant fear
Always aware, and paranoid
In constant fear
Never able to relax, always on edge
I must be in control of my own thoughts
I Want to Remember
Angelica Taylor
I want remember when I was a baby:
To see myself grow up
I'm curious about what happened and why it happened
Pictures don't show or say much
Like emotion - touch or feel.
Just expression.
But I want to see my parents together,
To see the small bits of happiness they had
To be able to see the fights, the laughs, and the tears.
Because those might mean the most in the smallest ways.
I want to ask questions about them,
not me.
Like how they met, what they loved about each other
But, the real question is what happened
Was it a bomb exploding in their minds, like a wake up call?
Or was it me?
I want to understand what it was like to be
in a relationship fueled off drugs
To learn from their mistakes
so that I won't make the same.
I want to remember the struggles,
the choice of having diapers or weed,
food or beer, lights or sleep,
parties or a home.
The thought process they had to decide,
do I want this or my two children.
What does it feel like waking up in the morning
knowing there’s nothing you can do?
I want them to say they made a mistake
I want them to look us in our eyes
And say: I'm sorry.
I’m sorry I made your life difficult at a young age.
I’m sorry that I can't take back what I did
that scarred you for life mentally.
I can only say I’m sorry.
The End
John-Thomas Spradlin
It was not in our blood,
It came to us very late.
With deep scars to make healed,
When we began to hate.
Too easily we were moved,
Our modern world ill-fit to wait
Till every lie became truth
Ere we began to hate.
The voices began even and low,
The eyes steady and straight
Then a fuse was set to blow,
When we began to hate.
It was preached by the crowd,
It was more powerful than the state.
No one was innocent,
When we began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
Sleeping silent in our hearts.
Through the chill years to come,
When time shall count from the date
That we began to hate.
Faith Crittenden
A Display of Autumn Leaves
Sarah Buras
They position themselves in random clusters
on the ground, blade to blade,
each an emblem of diversity
crumpled with stringy veins
which complement the leaves’
comfortable palette
like calm flames of a fire
in an outside blaze
fiery, glowing
prismatic; think warm
the wildly rain-bowed
spectrum of an amber sunrise
think an inviting sunset
radiant, and radiant
and all of them in every way
capturing our most vulnerable feelings
- nothing about them
dull.
Amari Hunt
I Have Always Wondered
Amber Cofield
I have always wondered
What heaven looks like
Is it streets of gold
And pearly gates
Or a marvelous forest
With a shimmering lake
Is heaven a place
Filled with relatives and love
Or a place you’ll find
Has none of the above
Is heaven tall buildings
Mansions they say
Or small cottages
And places to stay
Heaven I think
Is a place many go
And family waits
Watching you below
I have always pondered
The idea of a place
Where no crime exists
And everyone is safe
I constantly wonder
What people do
In a place where people
Are crowded like a zoo
Is heaven a place
That actually exist
Or is it a figment
A visage of shadowy ships
Shadowy ships
That pass by
Ships that souls
Use to say goodbye
The Indian Dream Girl
Khushi Patel
In an country with independence
In a city always full of colors and lights
The Indian dream girl dreamed
Of pounding beats
Tapping small roots of trees and the rain pounding its heart of
Splash splash splashing with loud thunder sounds
It fills the farms with water and growing
plants that tip water over leafs.
But everyone on the island believed you can
only go out if you were a boy to be seen
On the islands girls were to be home, while a boy
would to go out to be free
So the Indian dream girl
Had to keep dreaming
Secretly
Softly
Drumbeat dreams
At the door of the Indian gates
She could hear boys playing sports and leading off to work
When she closed her eyes she could also see her own imagination
playing a sport and going to the hospital to work.
When she walked under windy trees
With bright colors of holi spreading everywhere in the park
She heard a peacock sing the morning song bringing
a new day and waking everyone else up
She could hear her own dreams comporting her own
pounding heartbeat.
Her hands seemed to fly
As they reached
And reached higher to where her heart pounded
all her dreams
My sister was so excited that she
invited her to have a chance for
a bachelor's degree
But my father said only boys work
So the Indian girl had to keep
On dreaming
And dreaming
Alone.
Until her father agreed to find her
a medical teacher
who could teach her the
concept of becoming a doctor.
The Indian dream girl’s teacher was amazed
She taught her more and more
And she studied
And she studied
And she studied
Until the teacher said she was ready
To take her doctor’s exam where everyone else could see
her beating to the beats of her dreams
A girl to be the first to take a doctors
exam they all could see.
Both girls and boys clapped their hands and took proud for the one.
The only one
The Indian dream Girl
Y-Nhi Nguyen
Ashton Judy
A Woman Who is Truly Phenomenal
Kalia Bracy
A pretty woman never wonders where lies can be
She’s not pretty, or built like a lean statue
But as I continue to say on what she truly is
They seem to think it's all a dream
I announce,
It’s the stretch within her arms
The sway of her imperfect hips
The shortness of each step she takes
The pout made from her lips
She is a true phenomenal woman
A woman who is truly phenomenally
Yes, that is she.
As she walks into the space
Just as forward as could be
And to everyone's eyes
Where they shine and sparkle
Making their eyes stay into a gaze
Then they follow her,
Like a flock of birds
I announce,
It’s the passion of her shape
And the soul from her daze
The swing of her sway
And the tickle of joy in her face
She’s a woman,
Who is truly phenomenal.
A woman who’s phenomenal
Yes, that is she.
Everyone wonders why she’s such a gift.
What they see, is nothing but a shock
They try to think
But nothing can compete,
Her outside puzzle
When they try to solve her
They all want a hint
I announce,
It’s all about her
Her glow into her smile
The broadness of her shoulders
The gift of her style
She’s a woman,
Who is truly phenomenal
A phenomenal woman
Yes, that is she.
Now you can see
Just why she walks as she can be
She doesn’t get frightened
Or must be timid while your around
When you see her walking the opposite direction,
You just might want to do the same
I announce,
It’s her smile that forms from ear to ear
The bend of her knees as she walks
The palm of her bare-steady hands
The need of her stare
Cause she’s not just any woman
She’s truly phenomenal
A woman who’s phenomenal
Yes, that’s she.