Praise for
Annie Kay
"Through a book filled with tongue-in-cheek titles, Scheele subverts the reader's expectations of the poems by giving the reader a sense of truth."
–Tyler Michael Jacobs, 5th year SHP Creative Writing Instructor
Dedicated to Maxine Marie Annette Fickenscher, Summer Marie Florrell, Benjamin Creed Popple, Alizabeth Megan McDermott, Adrianna Susan Seberger, Aspyn Rylee Chapin, Jaelyn Ivene Trew, Lydia Justine Sikes, Hali Sue Knott, Darbie Matthea deFreese, Amelia Grace Terreen Hunter, Tyler Michael Jacobs, and PAULATRAITIES
Contents
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Alpha Wolf
Clanseigh
Dusty Bricks
Ginnifer
Judy
Lucy
Luella
Lydia
Marschawll
Mortha
Patrischuh
Raughger
Schelleigh
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Tyler for being a great teacher, thank you to ma and pa for being great parents that push me and thank you to Mrs. Veal for helping me write stories at a severely young age.
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Bright blue skies and
Summer storms
Weather warm and sunny
Going to the lake
And eating pringles in the sun
Oh how I love summer time
My one, true, only love.
Summer time
Alpha Wolf
Friends are great
Friends are wonderful
Friends Keep you up
When you want to go down
My grandma once left me a letter
A letter that side
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL JUNE 12, 2030
I was greatly confused
But I followed the rules
My grandma loves me
But she does do some questionable things
Like eating lint
I just want to tell her to put it down
I love my friends because they help me be positive
Positive and Grateful
They are so sweet to me
And they love me
Clanseigh
Pinterest is scary
Pinterest is dark
Pinterest led me
To a Communist Party
This was an accident
I solemnly swear
I would only join a Communists
If they braided my hair
I was looking at braided hair
On Pinterest one night
It led me to the site
Called No More Commie Fights
Commie Fights might be fun
But they are dangerous and bad
Even if they aren’t in the sun
They are entirely not rad
So if you are looking
At braids on Pinterest tonight
Please be careful
And do not be led to the Communist Party site
Dusty Bricks
Weighed down by bricks of
Anxiety, worry, loneliness
Yearning for the bricks to be removed from my head
I can feel my spine compressing with every step I take
I need it to feel stretched
Just once more
Before I had things to care about
Homework, a job, sports
I just want to be able to stand up tall
Once more
Just to breathe
And my lungs not be filled with dust
To not feel weighed down with every step I take
To be able to go out
And be present
To feel like myself again
Without the bricks and dust
That alter me
The true me
Is hidden under the bricks
Within the thick layers of dust
This is not where I hope to stay
But in every moment
It is harder to
Move, to breathe
To continue
Ginnifer
Get up
Go to school
Get home
Do homework
Sleep
Repeat
The average day
Of a teenager my age
Stressful and uncertain
Will I pass my math test on Wednesday
Worry and fear course through our veins
The veins that are meant to carry blood throughout our body
Not the worry and fear causing our anxiety
The anxiety that makes it hard to go in public
The anxiety that causes us to cry every night
The anxiety that forces us to stay home on the hard days
The hard days we shouldn’t be having at this age
They say these are our good years
Well if this is the good years
How much worse will the bad years be
Judy
Nowhere
But nowhere is not a thing
If you are nowhere
You are somewhere
“I am in the middle of nowhere”
No, you are somewhere
Nowhere isn’t even somewhere in the air
Nowhere is always somewhere
Nothing is not a thing
You are always doing something
You can never be doing nothing
“Oh I am doing nothing”
No, you are breathing
You are laying
You are sitting
Nowhere and nothing simply do not exist
When you are nowhere doing nothing
You are simply somewhere doing something
It may seem boring
And there may be very little do see
But you are always somewhere doing something
Because nowhere and nothing can simply not exist ever
Lucy
Not popular
But known by everyone
Not mean like the popular girls
But nice like her friends
A girl who cares
A girl who worries about her friends
A girl who doesn’t handle pressure well
An outsider but not quite
Luella
Forever
But it doesn’t last forever
A forever that ends
A forever that you can never have
A forever that lasted forever
Just for them, not you
A forever you wish you could have back
A forever that hurt
That stung like a bee
Not a bee, an angry wasp
A forever that burns like touching your arm to the curling iron
A forever that was forever for them
But it will never be a forever for you
A forever lost
By the grip of death
So you were a forever for them
But they can never come back and be a forever
For you
Lydia
Lydia
Father of my son
And owner of my love
Lydia
Papa to PAULATRAITIES
Changer of all dirty diapers
Lydia
Love of my life
Keeper of my heart
Lydia
Daddy Lydia
Oh how we love you
Marschawll
Fears of thing that shouldn’t be feared
A fear of being too high above ground
A fear of being sick
Even others being sick near me
I know other people struggle with this
But it controls my whole life
Hand sanitizer in every bag
No ferris wheels
Be cautious if people say they feel sick
Don’t look over the edge
Or you might fall over the railing
I can’t live a simple life
A life without being scared
A life where I can enjoy the ride at the carnival
A life where I don’t have to worry about getting sick
A life where I can just say YOLO
And do what I please
Mortha
The green grass like blades
Cutting through my mind
Blue skies as clear as a diamond
Like water in the Bahamas
Tall trees waving like a friendly hand
Greeting me on my way into the store
The water is a cool glass of lemonade
Comforting me on a summer day
The clouds are cotton candy
Greeting me at the county fair
Birds chirping like a choir
Gracing my ears with each chirp
The bright sun glazes my eyes with anguish
Like a hot tanghulu glaze over fruit
Soon the moon will reappear as a piece of pie
Making my taste buds yearn for more of the flavor inside
I walk like a careful deer
running from the hunters
Hunters are predators
Needing another taste of their prey
The ducks are lilies gliding across cool waters
Hoping to find a bite to eat
I am grasping any breath of air I can
As if I am a woman on my deathbed
Patrischuh
The cement
The pile
The cracks
The roughness
The cement
A pile of cement
Where I spent all of my days
The place where my brothers and I
Yearned to play
A pile of cement
Was the place we loved most
The pile of cement
Was the place we spent
All of our time fighting
Our summer days consisted
Of king of the hill and reading about monkeys
We got scratches and bruises and broken legs
I miss the pile of cement
The pile that raised me
The pile that saved me
The pile that took me away from any reality
That I had in me
The cracks were so deep
So dark
So scary
Despite all of that we still liked to hurry
To run to the cracks to see what was hidden
Beneath the cracks was a joyful haven
A haven of fun
A haven of childhood
A haven of dreams I wish I still lived in
Now the pile is gone
Beneath a large building
A building that does not amount
To the pile we once lived to play in
A new building stands
Where our not so soft playground lived
A new building that won’t be remembered
As such a vivid place
Colored with memories
And my smiling face
Raughger
Hands like gold
Gold like wheat
Wheat like frost
Dusting over the grounds
Over the grounds like dirt
Dirt making me feel gross
Gross and dirty and judged
Judged by my peers
Because the gold hands
Have cursed me
Hands like gold
Gold like wheat
Wheat like frost
Dusting the windows of my car
My car drives on
Polluting the air
The air I breathe
Slowly killing me
Killing me silently
Killing me slowly
I will be gone
In the blink of an eye
Because the hands have cursed me
They have cursed me
So I shall die
Hands like gold
Gold like wheat
Wheat like frost
Dusting over me
Dusting over me
Like a slick and soft blanket
Covering me in comfort
Until it doesn’t
When it doesn’t
It suffocates me
Making it harder to breathe
Just like the car
The gold hands
Are slowly killing me
Saidge
I see Honey and Chocolate
In your eyes
In mine you see ocean waves and algae
I love honey and chocolate
But you don’t love the ocean nor algae
You also love honey and chocolate
Maybe a little ash sometimes too
Perhaps in her eyes
You see ash and chocolate
Or Chocolate and caramel
Maybe caramel and honey
Or caramel and ash
You don’t like my ocean wave eyes
You don’t like the mystery held within them
You don’t like the ocean
You don’t like the mystery within
Chocolate and caramel and honey and ash
Provide you comfort
While I create fear
Fear in what might come in the future
The fear of not knowing
What lies within
Schelleigh
Waves beating on the sand
Rolling the tiny pieces of glass
Into perfect spheres
Perfect spheres
That could once cut you
Just like people
The greatest friend you’ve ever met
Once a bully
Tearing into your old best friend
The best friend who left you to go to the ocean
But she never came back
She never came back
Because of your new friend
The one who is so nice
So nice like the perfect spheres of glass
That were once sharp enough
To draw blood straight from your heart
So be careful when you are at the beach
Because perhaps you won’t see
The one shard of jagged glass