Poetry

Who am I?

By: Zuri Sueksagan-Moses

I am the gentle and soft

But sturdy voice you hear in your head

Telling you to take that extra step

I am perseverance

I am what makes your feet stick to the ground

And makes you turn away

From the footsteps of those

Who you shouldn't dare follow

Peering down the murky riverbank

I am unswayable

I am that feeling

That comes up

When your heart flies back up from the bottom

Of the pit in your chest

Right after you think everything is hopeless

Just when defeat is so near

You can almost taste it’s bitterness

I am faith

I am your first thought in the morning

Seemingly significant

The sweet hint of lavender

Tickling your nose

But soon to fade

Due to the bustling business

Throughout your day

I am forgotten

I am unrecognizable

Yet when unsure feelings settle within

Such as the lump in your throat

The twisting and turning

In the pit of your stomach

You yearn for the familiarity of my presence

Caressing

I am reassurance

I am your best friend

Always by your side

I am your kin

We share blood

I am whoever comes to mind

When you are asked what makes you happy in life

I am your ally

Always at your back

Ready to catch you when you fall

Who am I to you?

SOUND SIGHT TOUCH TASTE

Untitled

By: Zuri Sueksagan-Moses

the only difference between me and an astronaut

is that they get paid to be lost in space

and i don’t

when i’m lost in the endless void called my mind

im supposed to pull myself out

a good astronaut would explore the unknown

but i just lock it away

and hope that what i don’t know will stay separate from what i do

im sure if i looked hard enough i would find

all kinds of new species of mistakes

a good astronaut would fix mistakes

so that they didn’t have to happen again

but i just tell myself that it’ll fix itself

what if it's unfixable? is the question most frequently repeated

how do you fix something if you don’t know why it's broken?

my mind takes me far away from this world

just like a spaceship does for a real astronaut

a good astronaut would have a destination in all of the nothingness

im not even sure what mine is

maybe my spaceship is just malfunctioning

maybe im just a bad astronaut

Secrets

By: Emmie Knippen

When a cat slips

behind a curtain

of secret,

what does he see?

His own paradise of birds

and small animals.

Can I come in?

I wonder.

He mews.

Yes.

Come share the world with me!

The Girl in the Mirror

By: Emmie Knippen

When I look at myself

it doesn't seem like

the girl I see is the same person

as me.

It seems impossible that the girl

in the mirror

is the same one

people see

when I am around.