By Liam Palumbo
By Ella Green
If I were a giant
With the earth as my bed,
I would lean back into the soft, green mattress,
My body sinking into the soft, dense soil
And I would reach my hand up
And touch the calm waters of the sky,
The touch of my fingertip
Creating a wrinkle in the void of universe and time,
And I wonder,
What lies beyond—
Beyond all this restraint of time, this life, this world?
What lies beyond?
I know that there is Heaven, beautiful Heaven,
Waiting for me,
But what is it that takes you there after you die?
Is it the Hand of God that lifts you up
And brings you Home with Him?
Maybe one day, I will be sucked into the expanse of the sky,
Spinning and sliding
Down the whirlpool of blue,
Then, I will be spat out into space,
And left there,
Floating,
Floating,
Floating,
My body feeling weightless and hollow,
Everything around me black and silent,
Extended within the ripple, the glitch of a hiccup
In the universe.
Is this really what lies beyond?
I guess there is truly no way of knowing,
Of fully understanding,
Of comprehending,
What lies outside,
What rests beyond,
The blue dawn of the sky.
By Sophia Taylor
I want to make this dramatic
Like I’m pouring my heart and soul
Into a jar
To seal forever.
But it’s not.
This feeling, I mean.
It’s not heart wrenching and life changing,
It’s new and unsure.
I’m balancing on a rope wondering
If you hold the other end.
I’m imagining the way you will greet me
When, if, the rope holds
And your face fills me with warmth that
I’ve never experienced before.
Oh, what if the rope is already falling
And I can’t see it.
Is my reality twisted and flipped?
Do I just see life how I want?
So really,
Instead of the rope being stretched taut
By you,
Waiting for me,
It’s being pulled by gravity alongside my falling body
Plummeting towards a depth of,
Shattered dreams.
You were never there to grab my hand
Or catch me
Or love me.
Or protect me from the shards of disappointment.
You were just a shadow erased by the night,
A shadow I hopelessly clung to.
Maybe when I see you next,
You’ll smile
And I’ll smile
And my heart will be full.
By Madelynn Borey
By Cadie Weldon
Me— wrapped in you
You— wrapped in me
My dearest of dear
Like two braids of a thread
A sandy lock
Bends to escape
The bow of my ear
And leans to kiss your forehead
But now, now where do I store all my sorrow?
By the bitterness burning within me
like pine and gasoline?
Or by blazing hills and places borrowed
Where you choke on all the lies
you told at 16
Would it fit into a memory?
A look or a touch?
Or could I store it in a bottle
And not think of it too much...
Could I dice it into portions?
A fourth or a fifth?
Or could I place it with you—
The only scar I’d ever die with.
I keep your love around my neck
It was never accidental, but always wasted.
I keep it with everything ours.
I keep it with roses and laughter and
paper maché flowers.
I keep it with music and red lights and a smile from a friend.
I keep it with a bloodstained red notebook
A sparrow on the front, your name at the end
I keep, I keep, I keep
Your lies, your lies, your lies
I keep the ones big, I keep the ones small
In hopes that one day
I can forgive your cruelty,
But I know I’ll never forgive it all.
By Ella Green
Listen and feel
The beautiful song of the world
That plays all around you each day of your life.
Hear
The tune of the sun,
The melody of the moon,
The hum of the stars,
The chorus of clouds
Flow above you.
Feel
The music of mountains,
The vibrating vibrato of valleys,
The mighty claps of thunder,
The rhythm of rocks and rain,
The drumming of dams,
The poundings of plains,
The beat of buzzing bugs,
The soothing strumming of the sea,
The falsetto of the forest,
The plucking of the vine's strings,
The dissonance of yellow springtime Daffodils against the winter’s dead browns,
And the tone of trees leaves, batting against the breeze,
Making the earth tremble beneath your feet.
Listen intently
To the melancholy, stretched notes of Night Owls,
The riffs and runs of the wind and wolves wild, wailing howls,
And breathe deeply the artistic amphitheater anthem of air,
Fresh, wonderful air,
Filled with abundant honey-scented flowers.
The song of the world never stops playing.
It will continue on until the earth’s end,
But the song will change to a joyful throng of people praising when Jesus returns
And everything is made new again!
By Ella Green
Time slips away,
The hands of the clock tick away,
Each day passes so quickly,
Life moves so swiftly.
What will you do with the time you have?
What do you choose to pour your soul into,
To pursue and do?
Each breath of air you breathe is aliveness,
Rushing through your body,
Each second that your eyes are open,
You have the gift of seeing so much or so little,
Gazing at the grace and beauty of the world you live in.
Is your magnificent mind
Ever suddenly struck with the epiphany
Of the fact that you are living, and living freely in the majesty
Of the world?
Life is wonderful and ephemeral,
Shining bright as a pearl soaked in the moonlight.
What is the first thought that comes into your head
As you first wake up and dip your toes in the pristine water of a pure, new day to live?
Everyone on earth
Wakes up
And goes to sleep
At the dawn of bright morning,
The light of the sun makes its bold appearance as it creeps into your room,
Where the moon hides its pale, porous face,
And the dusk of dark night,
The yellow sleepy sun sliding into the blankets of the sky,
Where the moon’s fabulous face
Emerges from its hiding place,
And pours out its glowing waters,
Flooding the earth with lovely light.
What do you do in the hours in between
Where there is no waking or sleeping?
By Talitha Lubben
I once met a fox in a fork in the road,
His eyes a stunning green,
He came to me,
“Follow me” he whispered.
“Follow me” he said,
“Follow me into the depths of the woods,
We will hunt and play in the sun,
Run in the grass till we’ve lost all breath,
When day is done we will fall asleep in a meadow with the full moon smiling down at us,
And the wolves will sing us a lullaby.
We will live and die with no regrets,
For we could not have known a moment better.”
I looked down at the fox,
His eyes a nostalgic green,
And say to him,
“I can not, my life is not so small,”
At that, he turns from me,
And runs,
Deep into the orange wood,
All I can do is cry.
By Emma Palumbo
Jesus loves me, this I know,
but this I still protest:
terrified he knows the good
but also knows the rest.
Horrified that he has seen
the sewage of my heart:
the thoughts I dared to think
when it was not him that I sought.
God, I think I’ll always fight this,
your unending love for me.
It can’t be fair to care for sinners
quite this faithfully.
You listen to my protests
and you take me by the hand
and you say you have a plan for me
I don’t yet understand.
You smile as I list my wrongs
with half a mind to run,
begging you, “Take back your mercy!
I’m ashamed of what I’ve done!”
I know I can’t repay you,
I can’t stand to be in debt.
But you knew I couldn’t do it -
that’s why you handled it.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
and it’s this I understand:
despite the broken shards left from my
creation, He still takes me as I am.
He melts the pieces of my heart of stone
and fashions me one of flesh.
He smooths down these jagged edges
and offers me His righteousness.
By Sophia Riley
Oh beautiful songs
and lights above like the stars when we sing.
And you are singing! Don’t ever stop, laddie.
Oh sing, for whoever’s heart you catch.
My heart has fluttered above your head many a time.
Perhaps it will land there one day.
If you catch it.
How glad I am I went tonight
for it is strange to see us all sitting there
with our lives ahead of us
yet being lived.
“When you grow up.”
For what I say?
Growing up from living?
No way!
Oh please just sing.
I shall never grow tired of watching you sing
or smile at your own dear family
loving life’s little things.
I shall never stop smiling about you.
I can’t wait to meet you someday.
If not here,
up there I shall talk to everybody.
By Ezra Harris
As the sun goes down
The stars come out
The beauty in the sky
It comes out at night
You can smell the wind in the air
On nights like these it seems like life turned out awfully fair
As the constellations fill the sky
I feel like I’m floating on up high
But you’ll pull me down and tell me I’ll be fine down here with you
We sit and wait for the sky to turn blue
By Whitman Halverson
Am I to be Ophelia?
Some ragged memorabilia?
Some cheap thrill ridden,
wormhole-bitten,
desperate way to heal ya?
Are you to be my Hamlet?
The heroic way to damn it?
But lacking gall
you just appall,
I simply cannot stand it.
By Adalynn Wykoff
unity forgotten
one nation betrayed
our history was lost
in the battles we made
one time we believed
that we had won
but then we fell under
a crisp september sun
so what is freedom?
for what do we fight?
do we lay our lives down
for our country, our rights?
"indivisible," they wrote
and it had been true
one for all, all for one
for the red, white, and blue
we wanted this truth
to be reality
our freedom, our rights?
prove our mortality
we fought, bled, and died
our strongest we gave
for the home of the free
and the land of the brave
By Whitman Halverson
What compels us to make art from pain?
To milk out gain?
instead of tears in rain i paint my pain and gain my fame through games who’ve slain my wretched name.
And my ugly insides writhe from praise
From a haze of thoughtless praise which razes abrasion and prays on salvation,
You patch my cut with gratitude,
With thought for food and thankful mood which breeds a doom of brood, a gloom of rue, an insightful room of attitude.
Just say it isn’t pretty, please.
