Transformation
"A New Leaf" by C. M.
The leaves shift from green to red,
Twisting in the wind as they make their final descent to the ground,
Where they lay stoically, withered and unmoving.
They crunch and crinkle as stomping feet land roughly upon them,
Until the red from them bleeds.
Bruised, ripped, and torn, the brown leaves don’t stand a chance against the world’s cruel treatment,
The small, fragile pieces slashed into something unrecognizable.
Their scraps drift in the current, lost to the motion of the wind, swaying as the pieces of them fade.
Where the dead leaves lie,
Disintegrating into the ground below, new ones grow.
They sprout from empty branches as the snow melts, the beginning of a new season.
Up from their stems, the leaves pick themselves back together, the missing pieces replaced with something new.
The small stems growing into freshly green leaves,
The brown and withered forgotten.
These are the better ones, the leaves with more life, more vibrant to the eye.
But what of those that lay melding into the ground below?
Have they simply been disregarded, forgotten?
When new things grow, things change with them.
It’s a part of life that when things are broken,
You must put them back together.
Whether a fractured vase, or a broken bone,
You must build yourself back up from the bottom, using the pieces that you still have.
Using the glue that binds us,
The love that creates us.
You must use that paste, and form it into a new being,
One that no longer holds the cracks of loss.
When fragments of ourselves are broken, we change, our lost pieces forgotten.
As the new season begins,
We look back.
How much have we changed?
"In a Minute" by Taylor Paterson
Picture this:
Your life is going great,
you go about your day without a care in the world,
Smiling, laughing, laughing until it hurts.
Then in a minute, all that changes.
Your mood becomes the opposite, and your life flips you into
sadness and darkness, and you’re crying until you’re numb.
Voices echos “Nobody likes change. Get over it.”
That’s what everyone says, but let’s be real:
They are not the ones going through this change.
They are not the ones trying to get over the fact that their life changed
in a blink of an eye.
It’s even harder when you have no one to turn to.
Your “friends” pretend that they don’t see your struggle
so they don’t have to listen to you.
Do you know how much more that hurts?
I put on a mask every day to disguise my sadness.
That’s my realization:
I’m on my own and have to deal with this change by myself for a bit.
Damn, change is hard, and
I won’t recover in a minute.
"Her Face" by Kalena V.
As the leaves danced in a slow waltz down from the trees, I was there in the school’s well-sized gym, shaking hands with all of my students from way back.
Some never really got out of their little “phases” but many look better now.
I was in the mist of shaking hands with one of my star students from 1997 when I heard her heels clank on the tiled floors.
Faculty and students alike broke their necks to stare at my old student.
Many of our students had changed as years had past, but if it weren’t for the clank of her heels, no one would have recognized her.
As she paraded into the room, her extensions waving with each step, every little side conversation stopped.
What was her once clear and shiny skin was replaced with puffy cheeks and little dots from the needles. Her once petite lips that bordered her bright smile now swelled, clouding the smile hidden behind it. What was her once thick, fluffy, shimmering dark hair was now brittle strands on hay barely holding onto her scalp.
I stared at her, trying to find the once quiet and sweet girl I taught. The clank of each of her steps was the same, but once she reached me and began to talk, I knew the girl I knew was gone.
As she talked more and more in this character of herself she made, I couldn’t take it anymore.
Her once banterful, lively conversations she started were now materialistic and bland.
As she deeply inhaled through her noticably smaller nose, my hand seized her wrists, dragging her as my steps quickened towards the hallway.
As we reached a silent hallway, right where I taught her, I spun on my heels, shaking. I was ready to scream at her, ridicule her about what she had done to herself but I saw the look in her eyes.
Right behind the pounds of eyeliner and fake lashes and eyeshadow, I saw her: her anxious self was still there, but the look in her eyes shifted somewhat. Her eyes used to scream her indifference to others, but now, all they screamed for was validation.
I took a deep breath before finally talking with her- not this new her, but the old her fighting to be let out.
I asked, “What happened?”, and all it took was those two words to break her.
Tear after tear fell across her face, smearing every drop of make up with it. Each trail ran one way and another till she twisted out of my grasp and charged towards the doors, her heels clanking again and again.
I watched her breaths leave her body in huffs as her head swerved from left to right, picking up each conversation from my former students: those who talked of their degrees and families, those who talked of their jobs and their homes, those who talked of their change, and those who talked of her change. She picked up each remark, each comment, each insult of her fake, plastic face. And every word said quickened her pace till she was out the school doors, into the streets, and into the courtyard.
I stood behind a statue and listened to her sob, I did not want to pry.
I could hear her body trembling more and more till she spoke once: “Who am I?”
Spread Your Wings by Savannah Zeaman
"A Poem of Technology" by Mia V.
It's not real
OMG WE HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON!-send
I love that show too what other shows do you like?-send
You WILL NOT believe what happen to me today-send
Omg we're like best friends-send
It's not real
Oh! Hey, it's nice to finally meet you in person... Can't send
Yeah you too, um so... how was your day... Can't send
Yeah I guess it was good I didn't really do anything... Can't send
Well I have to get home now, bye... Can't send
Can't fix
Can't replace
Can’t undo
Can’t delete
CAN’T SEND
Fitting the Mold by Amber Persad
Transformations.
Forcing myself to meet everyone’s expectations.
Being judged by past generations.
Feeling the rush of desperation.
Why can’t I look like them?
Why can’t I be like them?
Why can’t I be…them?
I try my best to fit the mold,
Doing exactly as I’m told.
It aches and pains my soul.
But when they change again,
I’m forced to remold.
They constantly tell me who to be.
But at the same time,
they tell me just to be me.
It feels like I’ll never be free,
If I don't fit what they say 360 degrees.
So I’ll continue to conform,
My body being worn.
My heart being torn.
Wishing I was never born.