You just see green

Not attempting to change the hue-

Not envisioning it as pacific sapphire

Let alone not reaching for a golden sunrise

Hesitant to believe you enjoy the green presented.

It’s solely sage but in my eyes you can see the whole gradient of the rainbow

Vibrant and welcoming potential- making this moss hue less than dull compared to all else

Are you happy with the blooms even if they’re not fruits yet- even if they won’t ever, become thriving glowing peaches?

Author's Note: This poem is about someone enjoying you simply the way you are, not enjoying the potential person you could become. But the author fixates on personal potential let alone doubting if they can reach their full potential. Green / blooms are things that are growing into either a flower, fruit, etc, so I used that to represent the author and peaches to symbolize one reaching their full potential.

A friendship’s a phenomenon of earth

An undiscovered sea that all must brave

And wash up on a shore or sandy surf

In search of light to brighten some dark cave

Like forest trees will friends together stand

No two alike in that they are unique

Together they will wander hand in hand

A golden truth together they will seek

But like the ocean tides will sometimes turn

A kindled friendship fights the dappling shade

If light’s too bright the heat can sometimes burn

And tension snaps the bonded ropes once made

But special friends stay near and will not fly

An intertwined rope’s strength will multiply

Author's Note: This piece is a sonnet that I wrote during my middle school poetry block and it describes my personal perception of the bonds of friendship.

De l’arbre mère à la bouche

Je grandis de la baie à la graine

Décortiqué et rôti, mes saveurs mûrissent

Mes racines racontent l'histoire de ma arôme

Je suis vénéré par certains,

Volé par d’autres.

Si précieux que l’on m’a transporté

A travers les continents

Assis sur le trône de ta bouche,

Je peux être doux ou amer

selon la façon dont tu me traites

Aime-moi ,sois récompensé,

déteste-moi, mon amertume te transpercera

Je meurs d’une mort dont on se souviendra

Je fonds en rien

Mais je laisse mon esprit derrière

Une graine plantée, une graine inscrite dans la memoire.

English Translation:

From the mother tree to the mouth

I grow from berry to seed

Shelled and roasted, my flavors ripen

My roots tell the story of my aroma

I'm revered by some,

Stolen by others.

So precious that I was transported

across continents

Sitting on the throne of your mouth,

I can be sweet or bitter

depending on how you treat me

Love me, be rewarded,

hate me, my bitterness will pierce you

I die a death that will be remembered

I melt into nothing

But I leave my spirit behind

A seed planted, a seed inscribed in memory.

I don’t wish to present you weeds from absence of blooms.

You have peonies and lilies, amazing blossoms to show-

Yet all in return is the dead dandelions and fragile fragmented grass or flakes thereof.

Exchange of bouquets only for yard clippings in return.

Even with nothing you could enjoy the air of my presence.

No fruity fragrance to cover the scent of disappointment and pity.

Or to hide your smile of fake sympathy.

One day I wish I may gift you the goldest of marigolds, most fragrant lavender, alongside an honest emerald zinnia.

Author's Note: This poem is about the feeling of always feeling low or depressed. My poem illustrates the frustration of not feeling well like others claim, radiating the insecurity and shame that comes along with my depression. I used flowers because it's hard to keep up with self care, so in this perspective it shows the author's lack of beautiful flowers that surround them.

A fighter plane breaks down,

Beyond a field of white it falls

Just below the sun

Two planes cross in the sky,

The clouds hold them close

Afraid they’ll blow away somewhere

A metallic sundress in the breeze

As they fly around,

Their feet scrape against the sea

Like children in a grass field

Time takes what matters most

Bright colored days come to find,

They too, can break down

Over a kingdom of steel

Hung below the lines in the sky,

Flown by heavy birds

A fighter plane breaks down,

Now a field of white comes to call

As his enemy touches ground

Steel carcass lays dead in heavy hands

How are we, children of the sun?

Under divine light we birth

The same that will be devoured

Time takes what matters most

Author's Note: I was inspired namely by the war in Ukraine, but I also had a strong mental image of a plane flying over the sun in my head. So I kind of just combined the two. The poem is about two enemy pilots fighting in the air, and one ends up shooting the other down.

oh grumio oh grumio how i miss you so

It's been three months since i've read of you

And everyday you aren't mentioned the more I become like Joe

Oh grumio oh grumio why did vesuvius have to blow

You were beautiful like a picasso

But then you had to go

Oh grumio oh grumio i hope one day you'll know

How much I really care

I don't care where I see you

As long as you are there

oh grumio oh grumio how much i miss you so

Author's Note: An ode to Latin class. It is important to celebrate what you learn and the memories made in the classroom. Hopefully this last Latin class will remember their experience.

You and I are not at all similar people

You take you mornings with tea

I take mine with coffee

You say it’ll turn me bitter

So I drink more out of spite

Let the liquid dance on my tongue

Travel to my hands and teach them how to talk

Make its way to my eyelids and drops them slightly

Visit my hips and tells them how to jut out to one side

Let it wake up my attitude…

All so i can give it to you

You say we’re in love.

I laugh

Say yes

Hope i am telling the truth

You ask me why I love to read

And I know you think it makes me a silly girl

To be so infatuated with something so unreal

You tell me i should look up more often

Ask me why i’m not out living

But I ask you

Who would want to live here?

Here where feelings are always far too much your own

And actions are too real,

too irrevocable,

too permanent and with substance

You say imagination is useless

I say art carries us.

You say we are in love

And I

am speechless

You say money is the solution,

And we drown

in a sea of green paper the next day.

We go to the beach

You kick the sand and curse it for being sticky

Glare at the water and call it cold

But I grew up in California

And know nothing different

Know I would kill a man just to be drowned in something so beautiful

here

you say we are in love for the fifth time today

some incantation that you seem to believe grows truer with repetition

We sit in silence for some time

Long enough that the sun excuses itself

sinks under the horizon

The tide creeps closer to our feet

i say

no

and i leave

Ash Dean, 2025

Puzzle piece to a rubix cube

Belonging to a set just not this one.

Can’t connect with a balloon, a plate, anything but a puzzle.

Attempts to round its edges doesn’t equate it with the cube nor a circle.

With a dusty box a puzzle piece revealed.

Yet already complete;

do you remember the bakery?

I do

I remember the smell of butter

the display case right at my eye level

all the glossy sweetness.

I remember knowing nothing yet

except that chocolate was divine

and that you and Susie liked it here

so I decided I liked it here too

do you remember when I started school?

when i learned to count

I’d come home and count m&ms before eating them

one by one

until i got to twenty and ran out of numbers so I’d start over

I got to twenty three times before the neighbors came to play.

do you remember when I got a bit older?

when I started drinking coffee

how I’d take my coffee with cream and sugar

do you remember when I got a phone

when I learned everything I was supposed to be

everything I was not

when I became quiet

do you remember when I was small

do you remember my pride

how I’d ‘forget’ to pack lunch

how I always had a wad of gum in my mouth

how I’d wear my hunger like a badge

I bought my first crop top that year

in the mornings I’d take my coffee with a splash of non fat milk, just enough to make it go down easier

I liked coffee a little less that year

when we went back to the bakery I waited in the car

you came back with a box that smelled like warm butter and asked me to hand you a cookie

I didn’t even lick my fingers

do you remember how I found ways to lose myself

do you remember when I got better?

I don’t

dut last week we went to the bakery

I got a tart and two croissants

the tart I ate then and there, my hands covered in stickiness

the croissants I ate the next morning

took them with cup of coffee with cream and sugar

and I think u call this progress

I’m not small

some days, that is all I can think about

other days, i do not care

Barbed wire dogs chew on deformed steel,

Wandering around some dead plains

Rust clawing at their heels

A red sky blossoms beyond the hills,

Teardrops fall into a chalice Earth

Singeing as they touch ground,

No one’s left to put out the fire

Molten rivers run along a suburb street,

Wooden corpses have lost their shells

Their bent ribs open to the sky

Under the seat of heaven,

Dirt colored flowers cling to life,

Crawling out from drainpipes

Seared under a red eyed sun

Ragged clothes remain in pieces,

Baked into the concrete

Sunken cheeks dried into mud,

They’ve died holy

There is no man nor hour,

No roads left to drive

Just a flat desert plain

Where the sea used to lay

And for all the peaks since climbed,

Invisible behind a warren of haze

Who is left to blame?

Your walking down the avenue,

Watching the sky drop

Bottles all around your feet

Little glass shards that cry out

Glistening like starlight

Dusty eyes kiss around a crowd,

Playing sweet for a smile

Everyone’s out to come and walk around

But they pass you by

Black cars drive on the slick pavement,

Their tires making love to the rain

That slides away onto the sidewalk,

Where your castle lays

A park bench flickers in the night

Plastic bodies lay present,

A disease made by someone else

Though it’s all your fault

Glass eyelids close as the bus moves along,

Your home is anywhere now

You’ve forgotten the call of sleep

The curtain never closes

That concrete womb you’ve come to know,

The thing that keeps you warm

Even though the cold still gets through

Even though it still gets to you

You’re laying down,

Strung out and numb

Facing the stars as you wither

A thin blanket can’t shut them out