Category: 2018 Submissions

High school is a time for teenagers to have fun. It’s the time to get to know everyone around you and to create lasting friendships. Teens are stressing themselves out about their grades because they have to be better than the other. This shouldn’t be a time of competition but a time of fun. You can still focus on your grades and have fun, and you can be smart about having fun. You are only a teenager once so have fun and don’t grow up.

Hello, I can see you are frustrated by the problems that you can’t avoid.
Hello, we hear you when your crying rings out in awestruck anger.
Hello, I can see your fear when you think of your insults.
Hello, we can see your work as hard as you claim to do.
Hello, I know what you say when you yell ignorance is bliss.
Hello, we get struck deep by the ever-present anger that fills the house.

Goodbye, I know you’ll be around for me to visit.
Goodbye, we’ll call you every day.
Goodbye, I hate to see us go.
Goodbye, we wish there was another way.
Goodbye, I’ll see you every Christmas.
Goodbye, we cry when you see your pain.

Hello, I just want to say hello.
Hello, we would love to see you again.
Hello, I wish we still knew each other by name.

Goodbye, bearer of unconditional love.
Goodbye, how time flew so quickly.
Goodbye, Momma.

If love is beautiful then what is hatred? Ugly? They are all emotions, how can the be anything other than what they are?

He wanders the city, unsure as to where he is or how he arrived. The buildings are dull and towering; a vast contrast from the stale sepia buildings he’s used to. People bustle around him, clearly annoyed at his sluggish pace on such a busy street. There are so many people. More people than he had seen in his entire life. The are wearing clothing he’d never seen either; grey, crisp, and cold. In his dazed confusion, he asks the stream of faces what this strange place is. They push past him in disgust. He asks again and is once again ignored. He asks again. Ignored. He asks again. Ignored. Why wont anyone say anything? He wonders if he’s invisible. He screams. No reaction. “WHERE AM I?!” He screams in a plain man’s face as he grabs him firmly by the sholders. The man’s face contorts in disdain. The man look him in the eye for a moment. There was a breif pause, a moment of hope, hope that maybe someone would help him, help him understand what was happening. Ignored.

Destroyed and forgotten
Lost and Untold
These stories are broken
They’ll never unfold.

The pages are torn
The corners are bent
But the words don’t come off
They’re glued like cement.

The spine is cracked
The cover is ruined
But the book is still there
It just can’t be opened.

The ability to soar through the skies, running faster than a speeding bullet, reading the minds of others— powers only thought of in dreams or works of fiction. They’re always written as a way to beat the villain or make the world a better place, but that probably isn’t how they’d work in the real world. Some will wait an eternity for the world to force them to greatness; others take any opportunities for a chance at it. Would special abilities change any of that? People daydream of absurd powers so they have an excuse not to change their lives. No one needs cold breath to stop a fire or a hood to fix the injustice in the world. Of course, it would be neat to fly around fighting crime and being everyone’s hero, but powers won’t make that happen. Superpowers only amplify the person wielding them. Captain America was already fighting the evils of the world— powers just gave him a stronger punch. People need to stop waiting for a call to action and write their own origin story.

Our souls were meant to play
like children
connected
rooted in the earth.
We view the universe as magic
maybe that’s why I love you so much
Maybe thats why I see your soul before your skin

A man walks into a building, looking around he sees the horror of what once was. There are holes in the walls from strongly forced metal. You’d think this was a robbery gone wrong type of crime scene or something to do with gang violence, but no. He has walked into an elementary school. Our babies, our future is being demolished. What we do is fight against an abiotic object if which appears to have its own mind to us. It has no control over its actions. The person in control does. We don’t need control over guns, but rather fear the real danger: us.

The cherry tree
We sit under, watch them fall
the round reddies plop down next to us.
The tree grew as we did
and once all the cherries had fallen,
so had we.

My time in Mexico was magic. I saw the most astounding sunsets, the colored skies brought wonder to my eyes.The pink, purple, orange, yellow, and scarlet. Leaving with the sunset behind me, tears filled my eyes as I left the land of many beautiful wonders.