Secrets
By Sophie Howard
You tell me a secret
You say I can never repeat.
But what if this secret leaves scars?
What if it bleeds,
In my heart.
What if it burns,
In my mind.
What if I have to tell someone in order for it to die?
Because I want this secret to die.
I want it gone and I wish I never heard it
I don’t want to be a part of it.
Burning in my head, bleeding in my heart, scarring on my arm - I can’t take it anymore.
I tell.
I told the secret you told me to keep, I feel better, and now I can sleep.
Sure I was an adult but you always made me feel like I was 15.
Lesser than you and lesser than everyone.
Why did you have to tell me?
Was it burning you too?
Was your heart bleeding too?
Did it scar you too?
Did I scar, did I burn, did I help bleed someone else now?
Maybe I should have left it be so no more people would have to bleed.
Would have to burn,
Would have to scar,
The way we did.
Never tell me a secret
That I cannot keep.
Approaching Truth
By Matthew Sellers
Death is not the end
Another world waits
Subtle like salt
But strong enough to taste
A light path piercing oblivion
The mind can’t grasp
In fighting reality
Logic lacks
To guess it leads to uncertainty
To gain it people endure
Criticism and persecution
Crucifixion of the pure
Faith a game of tag
Trips up chasing reality
More than tradition
Correlation is not causality
Enthusiastic sermons
Spiritual gravity
Nothing stops the truth
That reveals the cavity
crashing sea
By Ava Kathrine Levine
In my seat I’ll scoot and move.
Lights and noises do not soothe.
The window calls on me to look.
I cannot focus on my book.
I try to write the letter b;
But my pencil draws a d.
I try again to get it right;
But the answer’s out of sight.
Some days my mind runs really fast.
Words and numbers fly right past.
I hope the teacher doesn’t see,
How scared I am she’ll call on me.
It’s hard to try to sit real still.
To get through my homework takes all my will.
I’m not stupid lazy or dumb;
It’s just my mind like to run.
A broken bone may wear a cast;
But my problems you’ll look right past.
You cannot see what troubles me.
Inside my mind is a crashing sea.
The Dig
By Sophie Taylor
While beauty lingers on her breast, she dons
A pendant from her lover, wandring far gone.
Nothing can mask the tremulous distaste
For the men
The army
The weapons
The weight,
Of the grief on her heart
The tears on her face.
A hole in her heart she’ll never replace.
