Contests

Winner: Indigo Field

Second: Waylon Ritter

Winner: Margaret Dean

Roses are red

Science is green

I don’t mean to be mean

Cause whatever you use

Is really quite mellow

As long as you don’t say

That math is yellow

Second: Mirela Lombardo

Roses are Red,

Coffee is hot,

You think you're right,

But clearly you're not.

Third: Margaret Dean

 Roses are red

and so are eyes

if you are a vampire.

Violets are blue

I see our future

let’s be together when I retire.

Winner: Margaret Dean

Lucille has come home from her second year of college, feeling ashamed and almost entirely a failure. After all, who quits halfway through a degree? Living with her mother and younger brothers again, Lucille spends the summer looking for a groove. Working part time at the used bookstore, she mostly stays to herself, and her family. 

The meet cute happens after church, when an old high school friend home for the summer after his freshman year of college helps Lucille wrap up the community breakfast (put the tables and chairs away, etc).

She shouldn’t, can’t, date him, right? 

But their mother’s are recent best friends, and suddenly Lucille and Joe are becoming quite close friends. This is a friends to denial to lovers story. There is a scene where Lucille and Joe take her brothers and his sister and two cousins to the beach. The big reveal/end doesn’t happen when it’s raining, Lucille just realizes she loves him when it’s raining, and the big reveal/end happens when it stops raining, and she runs out her front door to drive over to his house and sees him, soaking wet because he left in the rain, running to her house. 

Winner: Mirela Lombardo

My Dearest Pen,

I know we spend every moment together, yet I’ve never found the right way to tell you how much you mean to me. Perhaps that’s the tragedy of being a notebook—I can hold your words, keep them safe, but I can never write them myself. So today, I’ll try my best to express what I’ve always wanted to say. 

From the moment you first touched my pages, I knew we were meant to be. 

The way your ink glides across me, leaving behind thoughts, stories, and secrets—it’s magic. You bring me to life, transforming my empty sheets into something full, something meaningful. Without you, I am just blank space. But with you, I become poetry, letters, sketches, and dreams. 

I love the way you hesitate at first, hovering over my surface as if you’re choosing the perfect way to begin. And when you do, oh, how effortlessly you move, as if the words were always meant to be there. Each stroke of ink feels like a quiet promise, a piece of you left behind in every line. 

We’ve seen so much together. I’ve held your hurried notes, your late-night ramblings, your quiet confessions. I’ve felt the pressure of your frustration when ideas don’t come easily and the lightness of your joy when they do. And no matter how many times you pause, unsure, I never doubt you. I never will. 

I know one day, I’ll be full. My pages will be covered in your beautiful, messy, wonderful thoughts, and you’ll move on to another. But please remember—every mark you’ve left on me stays forever. And though you may find another notebook, none will ever hold these same words, these same moments, the way I do.

So for as long as I have space, and for as long as your ink flows, I will be here. Ready for your next thought, your next story, your next beginning. 

Yours always, 

Notebook

Second: Quinn Hoover

 My Belt and I

You hold me up. Whenever you are gone, I fall. I love all your textures and the way you fit around me perfectly. It is almost like we were made for each other. You accessorize me. You make me complete. The way your buckle fits through my loops makes me feel uplifted. Without you I am nothing but a lonely pair of pants. 

When we are apart and I admire you from across the room, I imagine we are together. For whenever we aren’t connected, I am plain and loose. When my drawer is opened in the morning and they reach for me, I am filled with joy because I know we will no longer be separated. When my zipper is zipped and my buckle is buckled, I wait for you to wrap your arms around me. And we are finally together again.  

Third: Waylon Ritter

Hello, mon amour. It has been many months since we last met and I miss you my love. You are the light in my world. The light you shine paints soft shadows all around and I miss that slender tall frame of your body. You bathe the room with a warm and inviting embrace it makes you beyond luminous a true piece of art. Tu me manques. I wish I could reflect your light once more and see you in me. I have been covered by a blanket. It is saddening as I would double your brilliance in admiration. Your light dances is in my mind every time I see you its blindingly beautiful. You turn the darkest shadows into beauty with your glow. You touch everything, yet never me. My final wish in this world is to see you not as a reflection but in your true form. Though I am cursed to only reflect what others see. I will always be yours, my love. I will reflect and hold your light and your love. I love you Liora, the most beautiful lamp in the world. 

Endlessly yours,

Lucian your Devoted Mirror

Kat 

Roses are red, Violets are blue, even though you're older than me, i still love you

Olive Reynolds

 roses are red, you're stuck in my head

each shadow that falls feels like words left unsaid

the whispers of night echo memories so true

each corner I turn paints a picture of you

the streetlights flicker, like stars caught in tears

they scatter like dreams lost in the folds of my fears

the benches we sat on, now cold and alone

remind me of laughter, the warmth of your tone

as twilight descends, I wander the lane

each step that I take pulls me deeper in pain

for every sweet moment, a ghost lingers near

in every soft breeze, I still feel you here

Mrs. Volz

Dearest Brown Bath Towel, 

Oh, how I’ve missed you. It’s been three days since we’ve last seen each other and I am beginning to think the worst. The washing cycle has never taken longer than two nights. I must admit, I miss you hanging with me, the way our edges could reach each other if we were hung up just right.

Elizabeth hasn’t used me since you’ve left. Not only do I feel alone, but also unneeded and under appreciated. Bernie used to use you almost everyday. I wonder if that’s where you are, with him. 

I just wish you would come back. The whole bathroom is bland without you. You know how it looks, how even I blend into the wall. I don’t know how much longer I will last without you by my side. Did I already write that my corner is fraying? I think it’s from worrying. 

Please come back to me. 

With love,

Peach Bath Towel

Winner: Abby Falkoff

Night of the SN-1987A supernova: It’s cold for May. I turn on the radiator. Somehow I manage to worm my way to the precarious spot where my telescope rests…“Ugh! I spilled my skim-milk! I’m toast!” 

Second: Adalyn Dunphey

Last night a slimy worm appeared in my skim-milk. What’s worse, the radiator was blasting such catastrophic heat it could’ve been a supernova. Ugh. I was toast, and chose sleep over the horrors of midnight snacks.

Third: Sonja Emerson

We worms are gathered on this night to raise a toast to skim-milk! A sparkling supernova in an endless void, a single radiator in the tundra! Let us chant our endless praise. UGH UGH UGH SKIM-MILK!!

Natalia Aguilar-Ripley

“Ugh,” I echo into the shivering night. I stare at my toast, the supernova of crumbs spread on the floor. I return to the radiator, cold skim-milk splashed on the ground, I’m a worm again.

Iris Keane

Elon Musk is ruining my life.

Now I know that you’re currently reading this concerned, am I his affair, his distant child, the one

who exposed him for being besties with Epstein?! Nope. I am just a normal teenager, but a lot of

people will say that Elon Musk has ruined their lives, (not just because he was in an affair with

them.) So Amazon wanted to be able to deliver our goods faster and better, so... he created a

bubble around earth. He uses a hologram to simulate clouds and sky and stuff, but when the

system was down you could see it. The conveyor belts and sprinklers and heating units all

above you. So... Elon musk also installed a nurolink in most people, me though? The doctors

said if I got an implant I would die so they pretended to put it in to avoid prosecution. I am one of

the only humans left who know what happened to our beautiful seasons. So Elon does keep the

hologram on for most of the time but when he has to turn it off, he uses the implant to wipe

people's memories of it.

Now you know the basics of my personal hell I can tell you about how it works, to keep the

oldies not freaking out about the lack of rain or snow or what have you he needed to find a way

to get water, and he didn’t want to waste his personal drinking water so... he used ocean water.

But he used the brain implant to disable people's sense of smell to simulate normal smells.

Everything. Smells. Like. Seafood. Now I used to love the beach, but now IT SMELLS LIKE

BEACH EVERYWHERE. And it’s always the same season, since the cold was annoyingly cold

to Elon and the heat was annoyingly hot we always lived in room temperature! Yay! So no

normal rain, no normal snow so I would like to take it upon myself as the only non brainwashed

individual to name this season, Eling? Elummer? Elwinter? Ok, I will keep working on it. See ya

later diary.’

I wrote. Then the doorbell rings. I open the door and see a package on the floor, but there was

something written on it in sharpie. ‘WE KNOW YOU KNOW.” I open the box and see what was

inside... my dads scarf is drenched in blood, the one he never takes off or lets anyone borrow.

He worked at the local Amazon factory. “NO NO NO.” I screamed become slamming the door

leaving the box out there, I ran back into my room and scribble on the next page of my diary,

“ELON MUSK HAS RUINED MY LIFE.”

Winner: Jaren Roberts

He likes to play hide and seek. 

He likes it because he’s so good at it—

I always know where he is, I can always figure him out

but we never really want to look into each other’s eyes, to see

face to face

I know his hiding place. 

His murky tendrils stretch from the floor beneath the bed, intimately familiar

with the dust as they’ve been roommates for nearly 13 years, and

I can only tell it’s not an extra blanket because the suction cups are so sharp and so,

so cold

Outside of the sheets is a world untold.

He holds me so deep, so far down under the covers

it’s hard to tell whether his nest is for food, or to prevent me from crawling away

to watch the birth of a new solar system, where stars explode like fireworks, forcing me to

look forward

We share no words.

His shadow is my shadow, but you can’t tell that when 

all the bulbs in the room have burned out, not when the

colorful walls disappear into nothingness, when I search for them, so desperately

all I can see, in that pitch-black darkness, the only thing I can truly know for certain, is

the void looks right back.

Runner Up: Margaret Dean

Last week I got the grave news

No one ever wants to get

The monster from my youthful days

Went bankrupt from his debt

And no one ever tells you 

What to do when your tenant breaks their lease

Well, let me give it to you straight

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be at peace

Richard packed and left for Iceland

Two days after I was left his notice

Apparently it’s cheaper there

Being a landlord at seventeen is so bogus

These past few days I’ve been printing flyers

But I’ve had no luck at all

Not even Sharon from under my mother’s bed

Has someone to give a call

It’s been five nights of vacancy

Of offers or inquiries, I've received nill

Darn that Richard and his investing plans

To bad he couldn’t pay his bills

Runner Up: Claire Hansen

This is not what I expected when I heard rustling under my bed. Everyone has heard of the fairy tales that prey on a child's night, haunting their sleep till they beg for mercy. Horns skewering the air. Hot lethal breath fuming out of its mouth. Claws scraping into the mattress, under one's body. Its presence cuts through one like an assassin's blade. I imagine my body getting sucked down through the mattress like in stranger things. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to binge watch a season at one in the morning. 

Reality claws me out of my imagination as the cold sheets cling to my body for warmth. If only my brother hadn't moved to college a year ago, maybe he would save me. My room still radiated his tenderness competing with his devious tendencies. My bed rattled in the presence of the being lurking underneath me. Nevesnous rose inside of me. Images whirled through me till I finally mustered up the confidence to peel back my comforter. My foot slid off the bed to hit the frigid wood floors scattered with nails poking out. 

Crouching down, a feeling of relief, confusion, and shock hit me like a tidal wave. I saw ten toes extending out, followed by a purple Northwestern college sweatshirt. My ease was short lived when a scream crashed from under the bed. ¨Fuck¨ my brother whisper-yelled to himself, after accidentally jamming his toe into a nail. It took a second but then I remembered that my brother was in fact staying the night to escape his roommates. Not a blood curdling scream worth being, but a five foot eight dumb brother looking for his computer I stole the night before for revenge for previous nights. 

¨Your computer under your nightstand dumbass¨ I mumbled trying to salvage some sleep by revealing the answer, ¨Really? Three in the morning?¨ 

¨What happened to a,  I missed you Alex, or a ¨welcome home my favorite family member¨ Alex murmured under his breath as he hopped out hoping to prevent any further injuries to his foot. Falling back into a non-rattling bed thanks to the absence of Alex the monster, I quickly drifted to bed with no nightmares. 

Winner: Avrie Brown

“I’ve finally found someone who reminds me of my mother. You scratch my ear just as well as she does,” He smiled at his mom then wiped the tears down my face into my snot, “Vanessa, will you marry me,” David cried.

 “Yes!” He really loves me.

Runner Up: Elora Cianciolo

“We can have a happy ending!” Saoirse insisted. “Don’t leave me.” She sat hunched over her lover, tears diluting the pool of blood.

“But Saoirse,” Chioko rasped. “There is no such thing as a happy ending, only happiness between the suffering.” And then she went quiet.

Runner Up: Iris Keane

I was never a sucker for commitment. But 10 years later on our weekly date night, he stood up, and I glared at him.

“What are you doing?” I hid my face in my hands.

He shrugs and gets down on one knee, “Free dessert?”

I smiled.

“Genevieve, Marry me?”

Sophia Hinojosa

 As I gazed into his eyes longingly then I noticed the slight peach fuzz on his top lip looked delicious I could look at him forever “Oh my puppy coded love” He looked longingly at me “My little skrunkle bug we have to leave together” YES I jolt as he lets me go from his hold. My petite slim body goes to the floor as his big meaty hands let go of me. He turns back into his vampire king form.

¨Onward! My princess, we must go¨ He says strongly. ¨O-O-o-ok-a-ay!¨¨ >_< I squeal as we leave off to the sunset now knowing I'm the queen and goddess of the vampires

El fin

Inari Patterson

Go out and make new friends like go out to a bar or party with friends and if you see someone cute go over there and say I like how you dance. You could also go on a dating website and say I like doing karaoke and dancing.